Rate this book

The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution Of "Proper" English, From Shakespeare To South Park (2009)

by Jack Lynch(Favorite Author)

4.01 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0802717004 (ISBN13: 9780802717009)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Walker & Company

review 1: Ever wonder who decided you can't end a sentence with a preposition? Who decided Americans should spell differently from the English? [color, colour, center, centre] Where OK came from? This is the book for you. I found it to be a fun read, even though it's not a subject I have any background in. [Didn't I just end that sentence with a preposition? What a scamp.] It is a series of essays that tells us how the English language has evolved, and became 'regulated'. Though I'm with the Founding Fathers and spell words any which way I choose.
review 2: The Lexicographer’s Dilemma is essentially a history of standard English. Lynch anchors his text in Samuel Johnson’s eighteenth century with fairly frequent allusions to the Renaissance and occasionally to t... morehe Middle Ages. Following the development of dictionaries, thesauruses and other linguistically-focused texts intended for the general public, Lynch demonstrates the longevity of the feud between the prescriptivists and the descriptivists. [return][return]As one might expect, the prescriptivists are largely concerned with dictating how one should speak and clearly defining “correct” usage. The descriptivists, on the other hand, argue that there is no right way to speak; the duty of the lexicographer is to describe the norma loquendi, how people actually speak.[return][return]After a few chapters, it becomes clear that reader will be captive to a recapitulation of the prescriptivist-descriptivist argument within different historical epochs and among different historical figures for the duration of the text. To be fair, this divide has structured most of the major linguistic controversies in history, but Lynch never expands the debate past its most technical parameters. Each linguistic revolutionary and reactionary begins to seem interchangeable with his (and more on this soon) counterpart from a different century because Lynch is aiming for breadth, rather than depth. [return][return]The Lexicographer’s dilemma is composed of very readable, conversational prose. [return]As alluded to above, Lynch provides narrative, rather then than an analytical engagement with his subject. He very stably focuses on the immediate conditions of “standard English” with occasional references to socio-political context. But these references never become a central concern. [return][return]Every chapter is subtitled, and each subtitle identifies a key player the domain of lexicography. It is a troubling list that goes without comment: John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Joseph Priestley, Noah Webster, James Murray, George Bernard Shaw, Henry Watson Fowler, Philip Gove, and George Carlin. True, standard English has historically been within the domain white male control, but it certainly does not mean that it is reducible to white male prescriptivism. This is in part due to Lynch’s scope: he limits himself to dominant narrative. Still, for all his discussion of dictionaries, Lynch fails to mention that the first dictionaries where written (by men) for women. For more on this see “Dictionary English and the Female Tongue” by Juliet Fleming.[return][return]Despite my political reservations, The Lexicographer’s Dilemma is informative and generally enjoyable. Lynch’s narrative, while restrictive in content, is a fine introduction to the unwieldy beast of language and the futile (and often amusing) attempts to tame it. less

Download links for: The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of "Proper" English, from Shakespeare to South Park

Advertising