Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words

by Anne Curzan

A kinder, funner usage guide to the ever-changing English language and a useful tool for both the grammar stickler and the more colloquial user of English, from linguist and veteran professor Anne Curzan

Our use of language naturally evolves and is a living, breathing thing that reflects who we are. Says Who? offers clear, nuanced guidance that goes beyond “right” and “wrong” to empower us to make informed language choices. Never snooty or scoldy (yes, that’s a “real” word!), this book explains where the grammar rules we learned in school actually come from and reveals the forces that drive dictionary editors to label certain words as slang or unacceptable.

Linguist and veteran English professor Anne Curzan equips readers with the tools they need to adeptly manage (a split infinitive?! You betcha!) formal and informal writing and speaking. After all, we don’t want to be caught wearing our linguistic pajamas to a job interview any more than we want to show up for a backyard barbecue in a verbal tux, asking, “To whom shall I pass the ketchup?” Curzan helps us use our new knowledge about the developing nature of language and grammar rules to become caretakers of language rather than gatekeepers of it. Applying entertaining examples from literature, newspapers, television, and more, Curzan welcomes usage novices and encourages the language police to lower their pens, showing us how we can care about language precision, clarity, and inclusion all at the same time.

With lively humor and humanity, Says Who? is a pragmatic and accessible key that reveals how our choices about language usage can be a powerful force for equity and personal expression. For proud grammar sticklers and self-conscious writers alike, Curzan makes nerding out about language fun.

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, Writing, Linguistics, History, Audiobook, Humor

336 pages, Hardcover

First published March 26, 2024

About the author

Anne Curzan is the Geneva Smitherman Collegiate Professor of English Language and Literature, Linguistics, and Education and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan, where she also currently serves as the dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Reviews

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one goes out to all of us who give a fuck about an Oxford Comma!*


This was such a reassuring and entertaining audiobook that I just could have kept right on listening to more and more of it and just blocked out the rest of the upsetting universe. The author’s new twist on this whole grammar thing is that within every person who cares deeply about these matters, there is an inner Grammando who very circumspect and respects tradition and stability and an inner Wordie who is curious and interested in how language evolves and is shaped by human usage over time. The Grammando is all about the end product and the Wordie is more process-oriented. Both are really committed to the cause of “correctness” and extremely conscientious; it’s a difference in approach and priority but not in passion or diligence!


Along this journey, the author provides a treasure trove of historical info about language use to back up these points, most notably in my view, lots of examples proving things like how supposedly newfangled or incorrect trends in grammar or usage actually have deep roots and were employed by respected language “experts” of yore such as Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain. Or, how supposedly immutable hard and fast bedrock rules of language were actually born from completely random and incidental events, such as a now- forgotten dude asserting the rule at one point in just one in a veritable buffet of historical and now-forgotten usage guides.


The author encourages us to embrace both our Grammando and our Wordie (as well as those of others) for maximum engagement, empowerment, and enjoyment and appreciation of language: there is room for both, and both are well needed and justified, neither more valid than the other! Why can’t we always all just compromise and empathize and get along in this manner?!


Five stars for a grammar book?! Why, yes!


*Quote courtesy of Vampire Weekend - also, a topic covered in the book!

[Kai Pan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a page-turner about language and usage! I finished this book in less than 3 days, and I'm certain I'll revisit it whenever my inner grammando gets the upper hand.

I work as a translator between Chinese (my mother tongue) and English, which means I involuntarily encounter cliched words and phrases on a daily basis—synergy, a win-win situation, empower—just to name a few off the top of my head. And I'll spare you the long list of Chinese expressions that I have much stronger feelings about.

I used to complain a lot about overused language when I was working. I wouldn't go so far as to lose sleep over my pet peeves, but I did notice other people's language use or overuse, and sometimes certain usage bugged me to a great extent. I just hated it when I had to translate jargon-filled documents over and over again. That's why I used to jokingly describe my job as "churning out gobbledegook from one language to another."

However, my perspective on language shifted several years ago when I started listening to Dr. Curzan's radio show "That's What They Say" every Sunday morning (actually, it was evening my local time). I was hooked immediately by her approach to language change and language variation. She was the kind of teacher I wish I had but never did. Over the years, I learned a lot from her about how language works and what to do if you catch something that grates on your ears. It was pure fun, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I believe the essential message Dr. Curzan has been trying to convey, both in her radio show and in this book, is that whenever you feel cranky about language and can't seem to get over it, just tell yourself to relax, be curious, and move on.

I love the analogy Dr. Curzan presents in this book where she suggests that we train ourselves to be "skilled bird-watchers of language" as we navigate in the wilderness of human languages. What a great idea that is! It is much funner to approach language this way than to always draw a line between what's right and what's wrong, because in language, correctness is a relative concept and the so-called "rules" can and will change over time.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who cares about language. There are countless gems in it.

[Cait · Rating 4 out of 5]

“as far as I can tell,” curzan writes, “it is human nature to notice language, both consciously & unconsciously”:

we make a mental note of some of the new words & new bits of grammar that we hear & see around us, exactly because they are novel. & when we travel to new regions and/or meet new people, we can’t help but observe some of the differences we hear in the language. some of us may notice when speakers don’t follow a so-called rule that we learned from a trusted language authority. I’m all for this kind of noticing: it shows our fundamental curiosity about how language works—how it varies from speaker to speaker & how it changes over time.

a key question for all of us then to consider is what we do with our observations. do we feel compelled to judge that new word or usage as illegitimate? or do we congratulate ourselves on spotting a new word or bit of grammar? should we jump in & correct someone when we think they made a grammatical mistake? or should we stand back & admire how language changes & evolves right before our eyes?

curzan posits that within all of us is a “grammando” (I’m sure you can guess what that’s replacing), the prescriptivist who judges language change & perceived incorrect usage, & a “wordie,” the descriptivist who notes, marvels at, & delights in new usage & language change:

wordies know the language rules & where they come from, & then they make informed calls about whether or not to follow the rule in a given context. wordies are the skilled bird-watchers of language, taking pleasure in observing how different speakers creatively deploy language & how language is changing.

the book sets out to help readers listen to the wordie over the grammando & to guide us in distinguishing between “good advice,” which “helps us create aesthetically pleasing prose, avoid unhelpful ambiguity, & promote clarity of expression,” & “some ‘rules’” that are “idiosyncratic[…], outdated, or never well-founded to begin with.” she also concludes that, “from historical example,” “in the inner grammando versus inner wordie showdown, time is on the inner wordie’s side,” so those used to letting our grammando win would do better to relax a little & let the wordie take over.

I’ve already recced this to a friend who often turns to me with grammar questions & complains they weren’t taught grammar in school (probably because pedagogical research tends to rec teaching of grammar in context, but hey). I think they’ll probably get even more out of this than I did—I’m thinking of little examples like curzan’s charming definition of a predicate as “a verb & its ‘accoutrements,’ as [curzan’s] student once put it.”

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some “rules” curzan examines:

- hopefully—if many adverbs, like “mercifully,” can function as “sentence adverbs” without criticism, why not “hopefully”? & on the note of “dangling modifiers,” while curzan doesn’t make the case that all misplaced modifiers are okay, she does point out that there are certain “disguised conjunctions or participial prepositions” that function similarly to sentence adverbs (e.g., “according, assuming, concerning, considering, given, judging, regarding, owing to, speaking (of)”) that are generally allowed to “dangle” & “are deemed okay” when they do so, so there!

- literally—”the word literally came to be used emphatically (in addition to meaning ‘word for word’) by the late seventeenth century. & by the 1800s we find writers such as mark twain & louisa may alcott using literally in that exaggerated way that is equivalent to ‘figuratively’”; no one took issue with this until “the early twentieth century”!

- different than or from?—a Q I’ve asked before, & while curzan makes a compelling case that it doesn’t matter, her explanation also helped me understand for the first time why people espouse from over than!

- singular they—thank god we, broadly speaking, have moved past the whole nonsense from otherwise sensible people whining that singular they is ungrammatical; I know from the depths of IG comments sections that there are still some holdouts on this front, but I remember as recently as 2015-2016 my ‘progressive’ host teacher trying his damnedest to die on this hill! for those still unconvinced, curzan provides examples of singular they from both austen & shakespeare. :’)

- who[m]—for those “gritting [their] teeth” at the fact that “whom is likely not going to survive” long-term, curzan says, “rather than lamenting that whom may finally disappear, we could look in awe at how long it has managed to survive”! it really is impressive, especially given that “we have evidence of who/whom confusion as early as the fifteenth century—so over five hundred years ago!”

- more subject vs. object pronouns—did u kno! that shakespeare also did this!! 1) “all debts are clear’d between you & I”; 2) “yes, you haue seene cassio, & she together”; 3) “I do beseech yee, if you beare me hard.” it’s difficult to know whether shakespeare “struggled to keep his [subject pronouns] & [object pronouns] straight” or whether “he was masterfully capturing that everyone around him was having trouble keeping their [subject pronouns] & [object pronouns] straight”—“to use modern parlance, his ye’s & you’s are a hot mess. to put it the way a linguist would, his pronoun variation (or some might say ‘confusion’) reflects a language change in progress.”

- collective noun is or are?—“in terms of meaning, agreement can depend on whether we’re talking about the collective as a singular unit or as separate individuals. it’s the difference between ‘her family is highly educated’ & ‘her family are all doctors.’ perhaps you’re thinking, ‘wait, does that really mean I can’t get this wrong?’ yes, & I hope that feels like a relief. […] agreement can get muddy when the collective is followed by a prepositional phrase with a plural noun[…] american grammar guides often allow some variation here based on meaning, depending once again on whether a noun phrase like ‘a group’ refers more to the individuals than to a unit (e.g., ‘my group of friends are going different ways after college.’).”

- try and—“the construction try and goes back to at least the 1600s & may even be older than try to. [!!] try and is also in good company with other “verb-and-verb” (look at all those hyphens!) idiomatic phrasing such as go & see or come & visit. & for try and to work, it has to be in that base form, with no inflectional endings on the verb[…] this is the fascinating descriptive grammatical knowledge that fluent speakers carry in their heads.”

- [un]attended this—“at some point it was drummed into me that ‘good writers’ do not leave the pronoun this unattended, & […] I would always add a noun to clarify the referent: this idea, this assertion,” but “sometimes it is hard to identify the referent,” as in the case of “this whole complex web of arguments I’ve been describing for the past three paragraphs”! therefore, “once you lift the across-the-board prohibition on unattended this, you can ask a more nuanced question: is it clear from context what I am referring back to with this this? if so, leave it. if not, add a noun to make the prose clearer—or rewrite the sentence for clarity.”

- flexibilities—really enjoyed curzan getting to quote grammarians, linguists, & scholars who bemoaned fussy language “rules” long before our time, such as when she quotes thomas lounsbury, who “was even less forgiving to those clinging to notions of singular agreement” than some other guy & who wrote in 1908 that “there is no harm in a man’s limiting his employment of none to the singular in his own individual usage, if he derives any pleasure from this particular form of linguistic martyrdom. but why should he go about seeking to inflict upon others the misery which owes its origins to his own ignorance?” LOL! GOTTEM! another bit on a different “rule” in which guy advocates for one thing unless “custom, euphony, or convenience” dictate otherwise—which I think is a great rule of thumb!! yet another bit in a section on commas in which yet another guy declares that “the doctrine of punctuation must needs be very imperfect: few precise rules can be given, which will hold without exception in all cases; but much must be left to the judgement & taste of the writer.” as curzan continues, “there are guidelines, but the very creativity of human language & of effective prose requires some flexibility & some application of good sense to punctuation.” even strunk & white, not famously flexible, get in on it: with regard to “stranded prepositions,” they write that, “not only is the preposition acceptable at the end, sometimes it is more effective in that spot than anywhere else. ‘a claw hammer, not an ax, was the tool he murdered her with.’ this is preferable to ‘a claw hammer, not an ax, was the tool with which he murdered her.’ why? because it sounds more violent, more like murder. a matter of ear.” another: “in the 1920s, h. w. fowler, who was not known for his life-and-let-live grammar attitudes, does address the idea that you can’t start a sentence with and, & he calls it a ‘faintly lingering superstition.’”

⊹

helpful 2 show 2/remind students:

- “if the semicolon, as lewis thomas describes, creates a feeling of expectancy that more related material is to come, the colon could be seen as urging the reader forward, foreshadowing that what is to come is going to explain or exemplify what we have just read.” yeah!!!! the way I usually describe it is that “the colon says, ‘what I’m about to say is going to explain what I just said,’” but I like curzan’s version better; it’s a more encompassing & covers the semicolon’s base to boot.

- “in any formal register of writing, we are expected to use different vocabulary & different syntactic structures.”

- “the em dash […] is one of the most versatile punctuation marks we have: it can function like a comma, a semicolon, a colon, or parentheses, but with a different, less formal, sometimes more dramatic connotation. it has a bit of flair, a dashing style, so to speak. it’s hard to get wrong. […] adding a new but related thought, with some emphasis? put in an em dash. interrupting the sentence to add an explanation? put in two em dashes. adding nonessential information about something, but it feels more important than parentheses? put in two em dashes. connecting two clauses but the semicolon feels too formal? put in an em dash.” but with the em dash as “the utility player of punctuation baseball,” when does too much become too much? “it’s not that any one of those dashes [in an example preceding paragraph] is incorrect. the issue is distraction. punctuation is designed to help readers navigate written material, subtly organizing phrases, clauses, & sentences on the page, minimizing ambiguity where it can. ideally, it should be a supporting character in the prose, not a star. is overuse misuse? I recommend being careful about equating the two. but overuse can deprive the em dash of its punctuational punch.”

- “the en dash[…], among other roles, separates dates (e.g., 2023–2024) or other inclusive numbers (e.g., pages 34–39) & connects entities in a directional relationship (e.g., the new york–boston train).” I’d add things that would otherwise be hyphenated but have multiple words at the beginning or end (e.g., “new york–born writer edith wharton”) because I personally loathe the use of a hyphen in that context lol.

- “capitalization is one of the ways we show respect on the page.”

- “so, back to the advice about not starting a sentence with and or but. you can see why teachers might say this to young writers to encourage them not to rely too much on and as a coordinator. teachers are trying to help students start to write in less colloquial ways, in ways that are valued in academic & professional contexts. but advice for young writers is, of course, different from a hard-and-fast rule.”

- “the first & most important thing with danglers is to remember the different demands of speech & writing. dangling & misplaced modifiers are generally not a big deal in speech or written forms such as texting. context usually resolves any ambiguity, & if by some chance it doesn’t, someone can ask[ … for clarity]. with formal writing, we have to be more careful, & the dangling or misplaced modifier presents more danger for misunderstanding. as a general rule, when you edit more formal writing, let your inner grammando check the modifiers that start sentences to see what comes after them, remembering that some -ing modifiers like considering & regarding are now considered exceptions.”

- “and I want you to be able to say you know english grammar, whatever criteria someone is using!”

- “when we say a piece of writing—or even just a paragraph—is ‘choppy,’ we’re usually saying that we’re struggling to see connections between sentences. somehow, our expectations as readers are not being met. we’re reading along & expecting one thing, & then we get something else, & so our head metaphorically jerks up. ‘what? why is that right there? where is this passage going?’ this raises the key question: how can you know what your readers are expecting? & how can you help them navigate your prose? you can’t entirely know your readers’ expectations, but […] here’s the fundamental idea: as readers, we typically expect information we know to precede new information.”

⊹

miscellany:

- I think I must have been living under a rock for missing that kareem abdul-jabbar has had an extensive post-NBA career as an author & cultural critic?? “abdul-jabbar defines political correctness as ‘a relatively benign combination of good old-fashioned manners & simple sensitivity toward others.’” rock on!

- my beautiful multi-use friend like, which can be used “as a quotative” (“linguist alexandra d’arcy, at the university of victoria, has evidence of quotative like from nineteenth-century england”!!!), “as a focuser,” “as a filler,” & “as an approximative or hedge.” :’) did u kno that back in the day (as in, dating back to 1790 & as recently as the 1950s, so quite a long day indeed) there was a great kerfluffle over like used “as a subordinating conjunction or subordinator” rather than solely “as a preposition”!!

- “why does the g- in go become a w- in the past tense went? because the verb go stole the past tense went from the verb wend. seriously. we then created a new past tense for wend: wended, as in ‘we wended our way through the neighborhood.’” just wanna state 4 the record that english is SO goofy & I LUV it

- “in old english, the first-person pronoun was ic (pronounced “each”), & it was spelled like that, with no capital letter. the pronoun lost the c by the twelfth century (that final c was lost on lots of words, including the suffix -lic, which became modern -ly). by the late 1300s, the one-letter pronoun started to become taller. historians of the language aren’t sure why: perhaps it didn’t look good on the page as a lowercase i, or perhaps it helped distinguish the pronoun i from the shorthand i, which could be an abbreviation for if or in. it eventually got tall enough to be consistently written as a capital I.” FASCINATING STUFF!!!

- “linguist david crystal points out that there may be prosodic factors […] that encourage us to split some infinitives, in particular to maintain the rhythm of [alternating] stress: to boldly go maintains that pattern, whereas boldly to go (strong-weak-weak-strong) or to go boldly (weak-strong-strong-weak) do not.” beyond just split infinitives I think about this ALL the TIME lol

- “new work on what is being called ‘backstory so’ suggests that so is also preparing a listener for a response that may be longer than they were expecting—and this is rapidly on the rise.” <3

- “crossing out says: this usage doesn’t belong here. underlining says: this usage struck me as a reader & I want to make sure it is exactly what you meant to do & want to do as a writer. it respects the writer as someone who is making choices to achieve their writerly goals, based on their understanding of their audience.”

⊹

for most of the “rules” she discusses, curzan falls on the side of the “wordie”; for a select few, she makes the case for sticking with the “grammando”; & in some cases, she notes where she doesn’t personally love an arising language change but accepts that it is coming & that there is little use in judging it (particularly given the long & entangled history between prescriptivism, racism [particularly anti-Black racism], & classism). curzan, like me, is an educator who at times has difficulty turning off the “editor” part of her brain, & I am going to take to heart what she writes of how she responds to certain questions of usage in student writing: “so now I just notice it, & I keep my pen quiet.”

validating: curzan argues that it can be okay to be guided by aesthetics or the “feel” of the grammar, as that’s something I try to impress upon my students while serving as teacher–editor when we workshop their essays together!! “that said, if you prefer a plural verb in the latter sentence because the semantics feel plural,” she writes of an example related to “the principle of proximity,” “you’re not wrong.” that’s what I’m saying, anne! sometimes that’s what it comes down to, & it’s good to know both how & when to call it! similarly, on the note of “hi eileen” vs. “hi, eileen” she writes, reassuringly, that “there is no right answer here. it’s about aesthetics, not correctness.” later, again: “it’s also okay to follow your aesthetic preferences if/when a word looks odd to you on the page & a hyphen will help. after all, punctuation is about helping reader not get distracted from the content of the text.”

& as for who gets to break the rules with abandon without risking censure at all? well, as we all more or less know, that would be those who are “licensed due to your stature as a writer (because we assume the writer knows the rule & had good reason not to follow it—and there is no way to know when you have reached this stature as a writer!).” ugh, I know, right?

[Led · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just had to feed my inner wordie with this one.

Someone who fusses over language can both be a wordie: one who delights in language's shifting landscape, and a grammando: a grammar stickler and police.

Curzan breaks down in chapters the biggest language use contentions of today, shares their context, the origin and shifting usage as applicable, and the way to address them when faced with it.

In all of them, the lesson takes the form of—sorry, impatient and persnickety grammarians—talking down one's inner grammando; to not outright judge whether one's usage is correct but rather whether that is working effectively in context. Truly, it's like in many other aspects of the society,

‘Language changes and peeves fade.’

‘[W]hat seemed abominable in the past, often because it was relatively new usage, can become standard and unremarkable.’

‘Conventions will change over time.’

If someone's language does not thwart communication and we know exactly what the speaker means, it's worth acknowledging it may be their dialect and community that's reflected there. Being considerate is what this advocates for.

Confessing my being an em dash/semi-colon/idioms/phrasal verb enthusiast, I found plenty of 'word nerdery' here that's value-adding in life. I can see myself going back to this resource every once in a while.

[Melissa Baggett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The chapter on “flow” alone was worth the read.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever book with lots of thoughts and ideas I’d never considered. But also very relatable regarding the balance between our inner grammando (judgy & critical about word choice) vs having a wordie (open to the evolution of language) mentality.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the funnest book I’ve read in a while. (Read the book to see why I wrote “funnest” instead of “more fun”!) If you tend to geek out about words or consider yourself a grammar nerd, you might agree with my 5-star review. If not, it might be a slog.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid look at how grammar and usage can shift over time and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Read in short chunks while "hurry up and wait"-ing for subjects in clinic.

[Jennifer Holmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great resource for writers and editors who want to move their knowledge of English usage beyond “but that’s the rule I learned in school.” Usage evolves, and Curzan encourages us to be “wordies” who take “pleasure in observing how different speakers creatively deploy the language” rather than “grammandos.” And if someone goes grammando on your usage, Curzan lays out the evolution of often misapplied grammar “rules” and gives you the context needed to push back.

[Kristie Lock]

I enjoyed reading this one in small bites, just a chapter here and there.
The book makes you rethink how you pronounce words, how you formulate sentences, and where you put all of those pesky punctuation marks. (Yes, I am a proponent of the Oxford Comma!) My favorite chapter is "ask, aks, and asterisk".

[Alyssa Merrill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! I learned a lot about English grammar, but I also learned how to remove the stick up by butt about how others speak! Very good audiobook.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly for a usage guide, I vastly preferred the audio version!

I really appreciate the urging to accept the growth and transformation and shift of language usage over time. While I'll never be convinced that we shouldn't use the Oxford comma, this book did convince me to ease up on some of my other peeves that were baked in early in my life.

[David V · Rating 3 out of 5]

5 stars for the research, details, and explanations provided by Ms. Curzan. She has taken a slew of usage situations, organized them chapter-by-chapter, and provided us with the roadmap to being a "bit more chill" about unleashing our inner "grammando" (her word, not mine).

This would be an interesting book to have on the shelf or perhaps to have read a little a time, but it ultimately didn't work for me as a reading experience. I appreciated her position on why so many of the "rules" we adhere to regarding grammar and usage are not rules at all, or are part of our ever-evolving langugage. However, I think I was hoping for something a little more lighthearted or pithy, as opposed to the academic bent of the book. As each chapter progressed, the structure became repetitive and somewhat numbing.

Sorry Anne - "it's not you, it's me..."

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book all about grammar! The author declares that there are “grammandos” and “wordies” and that we should strive to be the latter.
Grammandos are rigid with their rules, but often times the rules are not really correct, or they used to be correct but are less correct now. Wordies understand that words change and rules change and are more focused on context and understanding.

There are lots of interesting examples and historical contexts in each chapter. I don’t know the at I’ll remember every example I read, or even that my comma use will be better, but I think the overall advice to stop being so hifalutin is well needed.

[Sai Krishnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very fun, and inclusive book about language. While the book focused entirely on English, most concepts apply to all languages:
1. Language is almost always about more than just the words. We should be mindful of historical context, and who makes the rules.
2. Be kind to people trying out new things with language.
3. At the same time, gauge the setting of use, and default to stricter, more “proper” usage in appropriate settings - Especially ones where the power dynamic is skewed against you.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was drawn to this wonderful book by Jennifer Rubin's recommendation of it, and I found that I agreed with her completely. This is a fun, evocative, charming look at the English language and its ever changing "rules". The author is a renowned linguist who urges readers to examine long-held beliefs about what is right and wrong in grammar and usage. I found the book hard to put down, because I'm the sort of person she writes for, "Everyone Who Cares About Words". From now on, I will encourage my inner Wordie to listen to language around me more closely, and admonish my inner Grammando.

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

As entertaining as possible given the somewhat boring subject matter. Author did a great job of injecting life into what is essentially chapters of high school English lessons, but it did get a little too dry for even my (dorky, completely into the subject matter) tastes.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just like brain rot books better

[Sara Goldenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really terrific! The Oxford comma was my favorite part!!!

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a lot of fun!

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

[Margi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting! A good read/listen for English language lovers.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook as read by the author. Kinder, funner and very refreshing.
My inner wordie and grammando thank you!

[Mugren Ohaly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is plagued by an air of far-left wokeness. I didn’t appreciate the author’s flippant and superior tone. She presents words in an us vs them manner. Just because we disagree on things doesn’t make my opinion wrong or any less meaningful.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun. I think I might have to read the physical copy again as I think there are some things that are lost in audio form.

[David Zubl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those who are interested in language, grammar, punctuation, and word usage frequently fall into two groups.

Prescriptivists are self-styled guardians of the language; they tell us how things should be. They are the ones who are most likely to point out errors. Anne Curzan calls them “grammandos”, and she acknowledges that there is a place for them in the life of language (but perhaps not for the reasons you think).

Descriptivists are a different breed; rather than tell us how things should be, they make note of how things are - how we actually use language in everyday life. Curzan refers to them as “wordies.” She compares them to birdwatchers: they delight in observing how language changes over time; they marvel at its flexibility; and they note when new words, or ways of using words, make their appearance.

Throughout this entertaining and informative book, Curzan urges readers to respect their own, and others’, inner grammandos and wordies, for both have their place. For her, it all comes down to clarity and context. Some ways of using language, while not incorrect, are more appropriate to formal or informal contexts. Ultimately, successful word usage and style all comes down to whether we are understood in the way we want to be understood in different situations.

For those who are anxious to follow “the rules”, or who notice when others don’t, Curzan does an excellent job of explaining the history of certain rules, habits and preferences, and how they evolve over time. This is a fascinating context.

Some rules that we all learned in school were based on nothing more than the personal preferences of eighteenth or nineteenth scholars; some were based on the grammar of the original language that English borrowed from; and some are more social constructs than about linguistic requirements. “Debates about language are almost always about more than language, and judgements about ‘bad language’ are often about speakers more than any feature of the language itself.” (p. 92)

Don’t misunderstand me… Curzan is not advocating a language free-for-all. Standard usage frequently helps us avoid ambiguity and be understood in the way we intend. Shared conventions are necessary if we are to use a shared language to understand each other. But language - word meanings, grammatical constructions, even punctuation - also changes over time; otherwise, we’d all still be speaking Old English. Curzan is an excellent guide to helping us understand some of these changes, and how the “correct rules” of word usage in many cases are not what they once were, and likely are not what they will be at some point in the future.

The only aspect of this book that was slightly distracting is Curzan’s frequent (and I mean *frequent*) use of parenthetical comments. Otherwise, this book is entertaining, filled with information and trivia, and liberating - keeping our inner grammandos on a reasonably tight leash may just be one way to a kinder, gentler world.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linguistics is so interesting to me. Where roots/words come from, how we use them, how slang evolves, what becomes adopted by all, what words fade/are removed over time. Some parts captured me and was interesting enough for me to call Kate and dump all the random facts I learned. Some parts felt monotonous though and I was ready for the ending

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5) This was a fun and interesting listen for the first half, but I definitely felt worded out by the end. I think this would have worked better for me as a physical book that I could revisit at my own pace than an audiobook on a time limit.

[Krishna Adhaduk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish someone had pressed this book into my hands when I was a brash, unruly, and insufferable English-obsessed sixteen-year-old. In Says Who?, Dr. Anne Curzan reshapes how one thinks about grammar, authority, and the dynamic life of language itself.

The book contains brief chapters, each centred on a familiar grammatical “rule”. I put the word rule in quotes because the author traces its origins, tests its logic, and helps you decide when adhering to it is useful and when breaking it, is perfectly acceptable. In doing so, she demonstrates that arguments about grammar are rarely about language alone. They are, more often than not, arguments about power, class, education, and social status.

As someone who once took pride in correcting people’s grammar, even when silence would have been kinder, the lesson is humbling. Judgements about language are often wrapped up in judgements about speakers - their class, gender, race and ethnicity. Instead of being a grammando, one should aspire to be a wordie - someone who delights in the way language evolves and actively observes as it undergoes change.

If you are interested in the history of the English language, how it evolved and what are the peculiarities that make it unique, this book is worth your time.

[aubrianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will always remember being eighteen-ish and randomly choosing to sit in on what I would come to know as my *first* Anne Curzan lecture during the first week of my undergrad program at UMich. Her grammatical frame of mind absolutely floored me (in the best way).

Eventually, I was able to take a class with her at the helm. I remember being so nervous to meet with her to pitch my final presentation idea (FAFSA's use of "traditional" and "nontraditional" to describe applicant families) (also regarding this meeting: I still have her copy of The Professor and the Madman she lent me--a trophy on my shelf, an inside joke, and a huge 'whoops' if by any chance Anne Curzan herself ever reads this).

Ultimately, Curzan's way of turning language into a kaleidoscope fueled my own love for language.

My ability to turn a professor I had for a single semester into a full-blown celebrity aside--"Says Who?" as a usage guide is a language lover's dream.

We often like to say "no" as English users. Anne Curzan challenges us to reflect on this and recognize how frequently we disobey our own grammar "rules" we like to claim we live and die by.

One of the highlights I will carry near and dear is in chapter 32. "'There were a great number of dead leaves...' Linguists call this *there* 'existential there'; it functions grammatically as a placeholder in subject position and bumps the focal material[...]. African American English uses existential *it* instead: 'It was a great number of dead leaves...' In these examples, *there* and *it* are performing the same function." Curzan reminds us that our lack of foresight and hindsight as language speakers is pervasive and often harmful--to ourselves and others.

Instead, I strive to live by Anne Curzan's words: "We have the power to shape our sentences in ways thay can convey complex ideas with readable, accessible grammar."