Review: Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Extremely interesting premise and a fun follow-through, although it could have been shortened a bit. I would probably classify this as YA, and I think I would have loved it in high school.


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Review: Words on the Move: Why English Won't—and Can't—Sit Still

Words on the Move: Why English Won't—and Can't—Sit Still by John McWhorter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another great entertaining book by John Mcwhorter, narrated by the author. 

As always, I enjoy listening to his books/lectures, especially when they have to do with the English language (sometimes I find his conclusions re: other languages a bit of a stretch). 

In essence, unless you speak in a way others don't understand you, there is no "incorrect" way of speaking. 

e.g.:

In defense of "Irregardless":

It might seem like it's a redundancy to say "Ir-regardless", but "overwhelm" is a redundancy too. 

Does the word "whelm" exist? Well, it did (you can find it in Moby Dick). And it meant overwhelm.  "Overwhelm" was the irregardless of its day. 

Rise up, sink down, enter into. These are also redundant, but people don't have a problem with them. 

Of course, how you speak says something about you. So one should know how to speak in a manner society perceives as "proper". Just as you tuck in your shirt for a job interview, you should 'tuck in'  your double negatives and 'irregardless's as well. 

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Review: Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. This turned out to be much better than I thought it would be. An insider's look into what lexicographers working on making dictionaries go through. 

Some of my notes: 

People are actively advised not to be social at work. For phone calls you can only use 2 payphones that hardly ever get used. 

Cheatsheet they use for Transitive verbs: "I'mma _____ his ass". If you can insert the verb in the blank, it is transitive. 

Apparently lexicographers *hate* dealing with so-called grammar nazis. To them that isn't what grammar is. In fact, most of the well-established rules these grammar-nazis want everyone to follow are extremely faulty. 

An example: Its (possessive) vs. It's (contraction). This seems simple enough, since we know "it's" is short for "it is" or "it has". 

Except we also know " -'s" is short for possessives (as in "the dog's bowl") so why isn't it natural for "it's" to be possessive? 

In fact, we have no problem accepting that "the dog's barking" and "the dog's bowl" are both correct, both using "--'s". Why are we so bothered when it comes to "it's"? 

Btw, this is a recent phenomenon (like many grammar rules we have now). Chaucer and Shakespeare just used "it". The addition of the 's' came later, but not as we use it. In fact, at first people complained about its incorrect usage, but the other way around. They said "it's" being short for "it is" didn't make sense because we already had "T'is" 

"On fleek" first appeared in June 2014, in a 6 second video by Peaches Monroe (where she called her eyebrows on fleek). In November, 5 months later, nearly 10% of all Google searches were for "On fleek". When asked, she said she just invented it. 

Many English words come from French, but some, like "Lingerie", have a pronunciation in English that has almost nothing to do with the French pronunciation of the same spelling. (we think French words should end in "ay", like Café, so we end "Lingerie" with the same sound, and pronounce the first syllable like the "En" from a french-isized "Envelope". 

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Review: Myths, Lies and Half-Truths of Language Usage

Myths, Lies and Half-Truths of Language Usage by John McWhorter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another excellent book by John McWhorter. This one concentration on the English language, past, present and future. 

Here are some of my notes:

So apparently the Angles, Saxons and Jutes weren't the first Germanic people to cross over to England. At that time there were settlements of Frisians already living in the Southeast. I had no idea. Although now that I think about it it makes sense since English is in fact closer to Frisian than any of the other low German dialects. 

He mentions an Italian dialect called "Monese" which I cannot for the life of me find any trace of. If anyone knows where this could be from please let me know. The closest I could get would be Cremonese (maybe Creo-Monese and drop the Creo?) or possibly a dialect from Monno, although that would be the dialetto Camuno (a type of Lombard) I guess. 

You shouldn't say "Ain't I" if you're educated. But you shouldn't say "Amn't I", so what do you say? "Aren't I?". Except that is non-sensical (Are not I?)

I want to read more about Robert Lowthe and William Cobbett, and their prescriptive recommendations for English usage. 

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Review: Language A to Z

Language A to Z by John McWhorter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my third book/course by John McWhorter and yet again it is excellent. I was afraid that a lot of the material would be repeated but, while there definitely was some overlap, there was so much that was refreshing and new that I find myself wishing to listen to it again just so I can take more notes. Here are some of the ones I took this time around:

Record, Recall, Rebel are all pronounced differently if a verb or noun. 

The etymology of eenie, meenie, minie moe and hickory dickory dock were excellent (both from Welsh numbers)

H for Hobbit and T for Tones were probably my favorite sections, especially his examples ('boat' and 'poat') of how tones can come into being.

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