Wordy Gifts

One week till Chanukah; 10 days till Christmas. Here's your almost-last-minute shopping list for lovers of language:

Everything You Know About English Is Wrong, by Bill Brohaugh, who writes a blog with the same title. You've got to love a usage manual whose subtitle is "Why English ain't from England, and 'ain't' ain't a bad word." Brohaugh, a former editor of Writer's Digest magazine, casts a skeptical and gleeful eye on bugbears like hopefully, decimate, and the verbified impact. But really, this is the sort of book you can open at random and be enlightened and entertained. I'm particularly fond of the section Brohaugh calls "Notymology, and Other Tales from the Bullshitternet."

Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic, by Elizabeth Little. Who wouldn't enjoy unwrapping a gift with such an intriguing title? Happily, the inside of the book lives up to the cover. "Languages are, without question, the great compulsion of my life," Little writes. She's turned that compulsion into "a collection of the quirks, innovations, and implausibilities of the world's languages"—for example, the fact that some inhabitants of New Guinea get by with just two color terms, "black" and "white." (The book's title, by the way, is the Chinese mistranslation of "Coca-Cola.") Charming illustrations by Ayumi Piland.

Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, by Ammon Shea. I wrote about this delightful book last week, but don't take my word for it: it's turning up on several best-of-2008 lists.

Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, by Rob Walker, who writes a blog called Murketing and the "Consumed" column for the New York Times Magazine. Not strictly about words or usage, it's nonetheless an essential (and well written) reference for anyone who works in marketing, advertising, or social media. Ever wondered how and why Timberland, a traditional New England shoe company, became the first choice of hip-hop artists and other "urban" (read: African-American) consumers? Or how a new energy drink, Red Bull, and an old Midwestern beer, Pabst Blue Ribbon, became surprise recent successes? Or how branding agencies have harnessed and monetized word-of-mouth? Read this book, or give it to someone who needs to know the answers.

Deciding the Next Decider: The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme, by Calvin Trillin. Disclaimer: I haven't yet read it, but I did laugh my head off (there it goes, rolling down the aisle) over Trillin's previous collection of presidential doggerel, Obliviously On He Sails, and last week I listened to a radio interview with Trillin in which he read several of the new verses, so I feel qualified to recommend the book. Writing short, humorous verse is much harder than it appears and a bit of a dying art. Learn from a master.

Need more suggestions? Mighty Red Pen recommends a new board game, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The Game for People Who Like to Read, which tests players' knowledge of the first lines of literary works. Former Boston Globe editor Jan Freeman picks the best some worthy language books of 2008 here (her blog) and here (her column). And Editrix alerted me to Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, originally published in 1983 and updated in 2004. Bryson is not universally admired by Real Linguists, but I buy his books anyway (and keep a couple of cross-references on hand to check his facts). Bryson's memoir of growing up in the Midwest in the 1950s, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, is one of the funniest books I've ever read—or listened to. Bryson himself reads the audiobook in the perfect deadpan; it kept me laughing during 12 hours behind the wheel from Oakland to L.A. and back again.

Comments

[Susan]

Thanks. The Thunderbolt Kid book looks like good reading and my library has it on the shelf in print and audiio. I'll just have to make up my mind whether to read or listen.

[Jan Freeman]

I don't want to nitpick (oh, who am I kidding, I've made a good living nitpicking), but I purposely don't call my book roundups "Best of" the season or year -- partly because I'm sure to have missed some excellent book, partly because it's about matching book to reader more than abstract rankings.

Thanks for the mention, and especially for the tip about Bryson's audiobook; sounds just right for this Midwestern kid of about the same vintage.

[Nancy Friedman]

Apologies, Jan--at least I finally got your "former" status right! I fixed the post; hope it's more appropriate now.

[Bill Brohaugh]

Nancy: Another Midwestern kid (this one of a certain unstated vintage) is humbled by your praise and your kindness. Thank you.

And maybe, just to be cantankerous, we should say "verbed" instead of "verbified" . . .

[Marianna Paulson]

Language is a living, breathing entity & your selections are feeding the creature.

Speaking of Bill Bryson, loved "The Mother Tongue - English & How It Got That Way." If for nothing else, I can now speak "Australian" - "scona rine"! :)

I'm passing this blog on to all my Word Lover friends. Thanks!

[Margy]

Another wonderful book for word lovers is "Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words: Gathered from Numerous and Diverse Authoritative Sources" by Josefa Heifetz Byrne. It's out of print, but worth seeking out. One of my favorite entries is "pornocracy: government by prostitutes."

[sleepless]

Thanks for the other interesting links, and your blog.

Bill Bryson sometimes needs to check with locals more often when he talks about varieties of English other than his own. In Mother Tongue he gets it badly wrong twice about Australian English - we overwhelmingly eat biscuits, not cookies, and spell certain words like "colour" and "labour" the English way.

As well, pants are equal with trousers (though pants also includes slacks, whereas trousers are more specifically male), and post and mail are more interchangeable than he indicates.

He probably got mixed up with his example (labo(u)r) because the political party is spelled without the u (due to historical reasons involving a prominant American). But the word "labour" is _always_ spelled with a u otherwise. We also distinguish between practice and practise, and similar words, whereas Americans don't, or at least I am led to understand.