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Baby Book Store > Baby books beginning with R
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Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling |
Author: David Wolman
Published: 2008-10-01 |
List price: $24.95
Our price: $16.47
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As of: January 07th, 2009 08:10:51 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 ROFL - 2 good 2 put down
It's a great read -- a romp through the history of English that brings an ancient mutt of a language right up to date with Google and text messages. There are many academic tomes covering this subject, but this is a smooth book that soon has you wondering about all kinds of words and how they have changed over time. Shows the connections and flow of the growth of the language, all in an interesting conversational manner. Surprised no mention of Orwell and his double plus good newspeak; but the fun history of Websters, OED and all the movements on both sides of the Atlantic that tried to fix English is wonderfull reading.
I grew up in England but have lived in the States for 20+ years, and have written a few magazine articles for various international magazines using different house styles. But still I learnt a lot from this book about how and why British English and American English differ. Fully referenced, so makes for a good jumping off point if you get sucked into the subject. And if U R 2 good 4 texting -- I know it grates on me! -- then you have to read this book to understand how the arc of English history adds a lot of context to this practice.
 Interesting insights into how and why we spell
Interesting insights into why and how we spell continues my recent thread on English (and specifically American) language
The American Language-4th Editin
Websterisms: A Collection of Words and Definitions Set Forth by the Founding Father of American English
Wolman takes off from a position of a spelling-challenged student to tour the roots of English orthography (the study of spelling) in this light extended magazine piece. He starts at several ground-zero sites in England where English as a spoken and then written language evolved, moves on to sites in Belgium and Germany to trace the origins of the printing press and its impact on orthographic orthodoxy, makes a stop at Noah Webster's homestead in Connecticut to consider his history-making impact on English language from the American shores, and picks up a protest sign to picket the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC along with other spelling simplification advocates to assess the impact of this quixotic band on the broad mainstream of spelling.
It turns out that among professionals in the field, there are those who espouse descriptive approaches--document and describe the state of spelling without judgment--and those who take the prescriptive approach that there are correct ways of spelling that must be honored, and deviations, either sharp or slight, must be corrected back to--
--and there's the rub. Back to what, no one is sure. Unlike some languages, English has no arbiter, either commercial, professional, politically-appointed, or self-appointed, of correctness. Wolman talks about how the great English dictionaries (Samuel Johnson's, Noah Webster's, and the all-inclusive OED) silently serve this role, and concludes with some considerations of how Google searches, texting, and the Internet may change spelling.
And yes, I used the spell-checker on this review, accepting corrections to "quitoxic" (difficult foreign-loan word), "judgement" ("simplified" spelling confusion), and "Samual" (simple typo). I did not replace "texting" even though the spell checker flagged it, as I judge it to be correct in spelling and valid in usage.
 The Gud, The Bad.....
This is really 3 1/2 stars. "4-5" for a worthy, thought-provoking idea and quirky presentation. "3" for research and writing that could have--should have--been better (and error-free).
And "2" for a cover that, as a sometime-cover designer, I absolutely hated. Not the author's fault, but .... "Why?" Whoever thought a book with a face partially covered over by speech blocks would attract readers interested in this subject--or reflect the book's content--should go back to graphic design school.
It's hard to review a book where you strongly wish the writing (or editing) had gone in a completely different direction. That said, there is still much that is entertaining, much that is informative, and the writer's desire to get people thinking about the particularities of English spelling (and its idiosyncracies) is a worthy one. So, admired the effort and intent, can't -quite- whole-heartedly recommend the finished product.
Wonderfully weird book about a truly weird language
This is an odd book about what has to be one of the most disjointed languages ever. English drew heavily from two very different linguistic bases--Germanic and Romance languages. The result--a language that frequently is at a loss to express itself phonetically. Many of the rigid, relentless spellings driven into our heads by a whole host of inflexible teachers have only been around for a short time. Way back when, printers changed spellings of words between pages and paragraphs, often in response to how many letters they had at hand. The language's spelling has been unstable ever since.
This book does a great job of revealing the history odd quirks of spelling and usage, particularly showing how English and...well, "American" have gone their separate ways. Funny, engrossing. And a perfect ego salve for those of us who still can't spell worth a....
A fun, cogent, down-to-earth book about the evolution of the English language
David Wolman's "Righting the Mother Tongue" is a fun, funny, cogent history of the English language, and various orthographic efforts to control or standardize its evolution and expression. Some of these efforts have had far-reaching impacts -- the standardization of Old English near the dawn of the Renaissance, the influence of the King James Bible, the publication of Webster's Dictionary -- while others are consigned to the back-burners of history, quaint, fusty efforts to corral in and control a notoriously far-flung and deliriously haphazard, polyglot language.
Generally speaking, Wolman's tone is inclusive and accessible - the book's strongest point is that it is not a deathly-dull academic tome. You still have to be a bit of a language geek to get into it, but even so, the freshness and humorous tone of Wolman's writing helps lay readers stay awake during these explorations of rather obscure intellectual issues. Although I'm sure academic partisans who are more versed in these issues may be more critical in their appraisal, I found Wolman's writing very engaging and informative. He has a talent for condensing complex topics without losing the historical core of the issues, and presents a coherent narrative of the academic issues, giving what seems like a very even-handed overview of the debates between inclusiveness and ivory-tower linguistic preservationism.
When Wolman does express his own views, the tone of the writing veers into breathlessness and -- fusty old fart that I am -- I find his impulse towards come-what-may acceptance of whatever changes we encounter to be a bit too lax. (I don't think the abbreviations of cell phone texting are a development to be cheered on: they seem generally regressive and infantile, and are a serious debasement of our language.) But bah-humbugging proclamations aside, I found this to be a very enjoyable, informative book. Definitely recommended! (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain book reviews)
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