The Mother Tongue - English And How It Got That Way
by Bill Bryson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bill BrysonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1990
ISBN: 0380715430
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780380715435
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Book Reviews of The Mother Tongue - English And How It Got That Way
Book Review: Very interesting book, and enjoyable!
Summary: 5 Stars
I love books. Being an aspiring writer I also love words, especially the origin of words. So what is more natural than to love a book that is about words. I think you should be proud of your language and should strive to learn it well. You should be able to speak it and to spell it correctly. After all, it is your language. With this in mind, it has always interested me as to why we speak English the way we do. What accounts for the idiosyncrasies? Why do we spell particular words the way we do when it surely thumbs its nose at all logic? The answers to these intriguing questions and more are in "The Mother Tongue, English and How it Got That Way". It offers such gems as the noted Samuel Johnson who once wrote that a 'garret' was the uppermost room in a house, and just a few lines later described 'attic' as the room above the garret. Of course I noticed right away in my copy that on the inside cover blurb about the book it stated the first lines of the book were: "Over 350 million people speak English..." When you actually read the first lines of the text, it says: "Over 300 million people speak English..." Wherefore art thou, Editor? The book is very readable, which was a pleasant surprise. Normally something of this ilk you would expect to be dry and boring. Mr. Bryson does an excellent job of keeping the reader's interest. This is a very informative book about the versatility of the English language. It compares English to French, German, Spanish, etc., showing how rich English is in its vocabulary. (From "I Hear America Talking" by Stuart Berg Flexner, PB by Simon & Schuster 1979 ISBN: 0-671-24994-0 505 pages) The English language has at least 600,000 words, over 400,000 more than when the Pilgrims landed. Most Americans are estimated to 'know' 10,000-20,000 words, but actually only 'use' half that number. Of these, just 10 basic words account for over 25% of all speech and 50 simple words for almost 60%, with about 2,000 words accounting for 99% of everything we say. The most common word spoken in American is 'I'. The second most common is 'you'. The third and fourth are 'the' and 'a'. Mr. Bryson expounds on this a little by saying "Websters 3rd New International Dictionary lists 450,000 words while the Revised Oxford English Dictionary has 615,000. Technical and scientific terms would add millions more. Altogether, about 200,000 English words are in common use, 184,000 in German, and only 100,000 in French." The book tells why island, freight, and colonel are spelled in certainly unphonetic ways. It tells why four has a "u" and forty doesn't. Another quote from the book: "Nothing in English is quite what it seems. Take the simple word 'what'. We use it every day - indeed, every few sentences. But imagine trying to explain to a foreigner what 'what' means. It takes the Oxford English Dictionary five pages and almost 15,000 words to manage the task." Having a non-American wife and helping her with her English lessons, I am very aware of the idosyncrasies of the English language. Especially when to her 'vase' sounds exactly like 'face' and she still thinks 'work' and walk' sound alike. If you are interested at all in writing then this book is recommended as a good read. It will give you some meaningful insights into the language and might prove beneficial one day in helping you write that novel. It could very well help you find just the elusive right word you need for that particular sentence. In the recent movie "Throw Momma From the Train", about struggling authors, one of the on-going premises of the storyline is an inability of the two main characters to find a suitable word for the opening line of a story: "The night was _____." Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito, the actors, both mouthed alternate choices throughout the movie, until DeVito's mom came up with that special word that described exactly what they wanted to say. They continually tried words like: hot, wet, moist, warm, humid, to describe how the 'night' was. The mother character mentioned 'sultry', which of course was exactly the word they were searching for. This is the sort of book that will help you to find your own 'sultry'.
Summary of The Mother Tongue - English And How It Got That Way
With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson--the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent--brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.Who would have thought that a book about English would be so entertaining? Certainly not this grammar-allergic reviewer, but The Mother Tongue pulls it off admirably. Bill Bryson--a zealot--is the right man for the job. Who else could rhapsodize about "the colorless murmur of the schwa" with a straight face? It is his unflagging enthusiasm, seeping from between every sentence, that carries the book.
Bryson displays an encyclopedic knowledge of his topic, and this inevitably encourages a light tone; the more you know about a subject, the more absurd it becomes. No jokes are necessary, the facts do well enough by themselves, and Bryson supplies tens per page. As well as tossing off gems of fractured English (from a Japanese eraser: "This product will self-destruct in Mother Earth."), Bryson frequently takes time to compare the idiosyncratic tongue with other languages. Not only does this give a laugh (one word: Welsh), and always shed considerable light, it also makes the reader feel fortunate to speak English.
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