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Origins Of The Specious: Myths And Misconceptions Of The English Language (2009)

by Patricia T. O'Conner(Favorite Author)

3.81 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1400066603 (ISBN13: 9781400066605)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Random House

review 1: I am a die hard fiction reader, if I am not required to read it for a class I never pick up a non-fiction book, until now. I am not sure what drew me to this book; I was poking around a recently added books list at a library and ran across this book, since I am currently in a linguistic based course, I decided to try it. I was definitely impressed; the writing was loose and funny without that “required” reading reek. I thought it was very interesting to learn about when and how that fashionable British accent first started, it is actually more modern than you might think. I also enjoyed the discussion about who speaks “real” English, the British or the Americans; the answer was definitely shocking. The book also discusses grammar rules that are actually lies though... moret up by Latinist determined to make English more like Latin. Having taken Latin for several years both in High School and College, I can kinda see where those Latinists were coming from; English does need a bit more structure like Latin. But then again, English is a Germanic language, so trying to apply Romance language rules to it is a pointless endeavor. All in all a good book; I would recommend it to anyone who would like to know a bit more about the English language.
review 2: Basically entertaining etymylogical discussion of various words/phrases. She's a linguist and the book is somewhat set up to correct some misinterpretations; she's a linguist and has to tell people that, no, it's not wrong to write "till" instead of "until" (etymylogically speaking, till came first, and until was first introduced as an alternative), that "inflammable" was a word before "flammable" was (in- as a prefix doesn't just mean 'not'; it can mean an intensifier, as 'invaluable' or, indeed, 'intense'). Also gives advice on usage; e.g. she recognizes the "correct" use of 'beg the question', but encourages you to give it up, as you ain't gonna win that fight. It's written in short bursts, and good for dipping in and out. Occasionally gets repetitive or needlessly dismissive/schoolmarm-y. But seems to know what she's talking about. Pretty short. less

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