Review: Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter — Then, Now, and Forever

Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter — Then, Now, and Forever by John McWhorter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another fun John Mcwhorter book. Interesting to hear tidbits, like how “darn” actually meant the opposite of “damn” and doesn’t share the same roots (it’s from eternal—> tarnation). 

Obviously if I review this I’m going to have to at least allude to these bad words. One thing I disagreed with was “c-sucker”, which he says is obsolete, but I definitely hear from time to time. I’m under the impression the show “Sopranos” brought it back to life. 

Also odd that “the other F-word” has no relation to the Yiddish “Fegulah”, which I always assumed it came from. 

Very interesting to see how Curse words went from “The holy to the holes”, as he puts it. Saying “damn” was once worse than the F-word, because it was considered blasphemous. Nowadays most curse words have to do with orifices (secretion or insertion). But he also makes the argument there might be another change going on right now, from current curse words (which we actually hear all the time online) to slurs. 

I remember a high school teacher scolding me for having a “Skateboarders suck” t-shirt, asking me “What do they suck?”. I wonder if that would still be an issue these days. 

5 stars

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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: 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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Review: Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English by John McWhorter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was worried this would be a rehash of McWhorter's other book, or of other books on the English language (I'm thinking mainly Melvin Bragg's "The Story of English"), but actually it had some very refreshing material.

I like his discussions on the useless "do" in English. ('Did you see that?' 'I don't like that' Etc.) and how it probably derives from the celtic.

I'm not sure i'm convinced of one of his examples of English uniqueness, stating how "I read" isn't really present tense because, when asked what they're doing, no one would reply "I read". I mean, that's true, but it doesn't seem unique to English, as he says it is. In Italian you would answer with the gerund (like with English) "sto leggendo", and in Chinese you would probably say something like ”我正在看書“ (so basically the gerund as well). Unless I understood it incorrectly.

Fascinating how "Going to" became a future tense. I also enjoyed his takedown of prescriptive grammarians and Sapir-Whorf adherents (although I imagine no linguists take that hypothesis seriously anymore, so it was probably directed to all the lay readers).

I'm also not sure I'm convinced about the semitic influence on Proto-Germanic, although it reminded me of one of the Sherlock Holmes stories (I can't remember which one) where he was trying to figure out whether Cornish had Chaldean roots.

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Review: Language Families of the World

Language Families of the World by John McWhorter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think I found my new go-to to recommend for people who are interested in learning about linguistics, or languages in general (although I still love Empires of the Word). I found this book fascinating, and McWhorter extremely entertaining.

Some of my notes:
The more adults have had to learn a language throughout its history, the more simple it tends to be. The longer a language is left to itself, the more complicated it will get.

"I went to the store" said Edward
This is an awkward sentence structure that is never spoken, only written. It never was a natural manner of speaking in English, but it's a holdover from English's germanic roots. Namely, how German likes to have the verb in the second place, as in:
"Ich gehe ins kino", and
"Morgen gehe ich ins kino"
We don't have that anymore, but we have some awkward ways of using sentences because of it.


If we didn't have written Latin, many language families would be much more of a problem. For example, "cheese" in Italian is Formaggio, in French is Fromage, in Spanish is Queso, and in Portuguese is queijo, while in Romanian it is branza. So what was the root word? Btw, in Romantsch it is Cascio, while in Sicilian it is caccio. We know that in Latin it was caseus formaticum thanks to writing, but without those writings it would be almost impossible to figure out. This is the case for most language families.

Apparently Estonian has triple consonants.

Also, I've been looking for a place to learn Cherokee online now, thanks to this book (although without much luck)

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