Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation

by Ammon Shea Narrated by Mike Chamberlain

Overview

English is a glorious mess of a language, cobbled together from a wide variety of sources and syntaxes, and changing over time with popular usage. Many of the words and usages we embrace as standard and correct today were at first considered slang, impolite, or just plain wrong.



Whether you consider yourself a stickler, a nitpicker, or a rule-breaker in the know, Bad English is sure to enlighten, enrage, and perhaps even inspire. Filled with historic and contemporary examples, the book chronicles the long and entertaining history of language mistakes, and features some of our most common words and phrases, including decimate, hopefully, enormity, that vs. which, enervate vs. energize, bemuse vs. amuse, literally vs. figuratively, ain't, irregardless, socialist, OMG, and stupider.



Lively, funny, and surprising, this is a book that will settle arguments among word lovers-and it's sure to start a few, too.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Language is funny, and so is Ammon Shea. His excellent new book tours our irrational prejudices about language, showing that an appreciation for the quirks and ironies of language history can put our understanding on a firmer basis and restore our sense of humor."
—David Skinner, author of The Story of Ain't

"On the playground of language, there is no more mischievous laddie than Ammon Shea. I plan to use his new book to split the lip of the next insufferable language prig who saunters into my office to accuse me of bad English."  
—Roy Peter Clark, author of The Glamour of Grammar and How to Write Short

“In Bad English, Ammon Shea wastes no time challenging widely held beliefs about just what English is bad. His subtitle, “A History of Linguistic Aggravation,” gets in an opening jab at sticklers like me, who know that “irritate” means annoy while “aggravate” means “make worse.” Shea, having read the OED to write Reading the OED, is well qualified to tell us we probably don’t know as much as we think we do.”
—Washington Post

Praise for Reading the OED:

"Oddly inspiring...Shea has walked the wildwood of our gnarled, ancient speech and returned singing incomprehensible sounds in a language that turns out to be our own."
—Nicholson Baker, New York Times Book Review

"Delicious...a lively lexicon."
—O, The Oprah Magazine

"Readworthy."
—William Safire, The New York Times Magazine

“Shea, an avid collector of words, displays an assortment for our pleasure as he wends his way through the alphabet.”
—The Boston Globe

From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY

"On the playground of language, there is no more mischievous laddie than Ammon Shea." —Roy Peter Clark, author of The Glamour of Grammar

Library Journal - Audio

12/01/2014
Shea (Reading the OED) wades into the grammar wars and does so with humor and style. While grammar sticklers might be just as irritated (they would not say aggravated— look it up) with Shea as he is with them, they will still find much to enjoy about this book. Pointing out that English is "subject to change," a flexible language that grows and adapts as it is used, Shea argues that we should not just accept but celebrate these changes rather than trying to force adherence to outdated grammar rules. Well narrated by Mike Chamberlain, this book presents an engaging, thought-provoking, and possibly—okay, I give—aggravating argument for grammar mavens to drop their red pencils and start embracing phrases such as "more unique" as evidence not of the death of proper grammar but of a vibrant, growing, ever-evolving language that embraces change rather than edits it out of existence. VERDICT Recommend to language fanatics and those who enjoyed Eats, Shoots, and Leaves.—Wendy Galgan, St. Francis Coll., Brooklyn

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170958375
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	08/19/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

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