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The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot, and Left
Weve all been taught that this sentence--"Driving in from the airport, the flags flapped furiously"--is wrong, wrong, wrong. But is it, asks David Crystal. Everyone knows what this sentence means. No one actually thinks that the flags were driving the car. Is this sentence really incorrect.
In The Fight for English , Crystal offers a stimulating account of the struggle between various schools of grammar to control how we write and speak. Ranging back a thousand years, to the anguished concerns of Aelfric the Grammarian, and illuminating the contributions of Samuel Johnson, Noah
Webster, and many others, the book sheds light on ten centuries of warfare over spelling, punctuation, pronunciation, and much more. The author takes to task such take-no-prisoners grammarians as the well-known Lynn Truss (whose Eats, Shoots, and Leaves was a giant bestseller), arguing that we
should say no to zero-tolerance prescriptive rules. Indeed, as one of the world's leading authorities on the English language, Crystal offers an original and authoritative counter-argument to the prescriptive agenda. He shows for instance that context is very important, that the dangling participle
"driving in from the airport" is not wrong because the context makes the meaning clear. Moreover, even the hope for a standard system of spelling is in vain, since approximately 25 per cent of the words in a standard dictionary have more than one spelling (such as dark room and dark-room and
darkroom).
Hailed in The New York Times Book Review as "fascinating and insightful, often funny," The Fight for English is a welcome breath of fresh air in the often stultifying debate over English usage.
In The Fight for English , Crystal offers a stimulating account of the struggle between various schools of grammar to control how we write and speak. Ranging back a thousand years, to the anguished concerns of Aelfric the Grammarian, and illuminating the contributions of Samuel Johnson, Noah
Webster, and many others, the book sheds light on ten centuries of warfare over spelling, punctuation, pronunciation, and much more. The author takes to task such take-no-prisoners grammarians as the well-known Lynn Truss (whose Eats, Shoots, and Leaves was a giant bestseller), arguing that we
should say no to zero-tolerance prescriptive rules. Indeed, as one of the world's leading authorities on the English language, Crystal offers an original and authoritative counter-argument to the prescriptive agenda. He shows for instance that context is very important, that the dangling participle
"driving in from the airport" is not wrong because the context makes the meaning clear. Moreover, even the hope for a standard system of spelling is in vain, since approximately 25 per cent of the words in a standard dictionary have more than one spelling (such as dark room and dark-room and
darkroom).
Hailed in The New York Times Book Review as "fascinating and insightful, often funny," The Fight for English is a welcome breath of fresh air in the often stultifying debate over English usage.
256 pages, Paperback
First published September 7, 2006
19 people are currently reading
715 people want to read
About the author
David Crystal
231 books775 followersDavid Crystal works from his home in Holyhead, North Wales, as a writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster. Born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland in 1941, he spent his early years in Holyhead. His family moved to Liverpool in 1951, and he received his secondary schooling at St Mary's College. He read English at University College London (1959-62), specialised in English language studies, did some research there at the Survey of English Usage under Randolph Quirk (1962-3), then joined academic life as a lecturer in linguistics, first at Bangor, then at Reading. He published the first of his 100 or so books in 1964, and became known chiefly for his research work in English language studies, in such fields as intonation and stylistics, and in the application of linguistics to religious, educational and clinical contexts, notably in the development of a range of linguistic profiling techniques for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. He held a chair at the University of Reading for 10 years, and is now Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. These days he divides his time between work on language and work on internet applications.
source: http://www.davidcrystal.com/
source: http://www.davidcrystal.com/
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
March 4, 2018
This deceptively lightweight book should be compulsory reading for every obsessive pedant and equally for those who take a totally laissez faire approach to usage. And in fact, everyone else.
This is not an obscure reference work, but a good overview that is accessible to a general audience. For a slightly more academic approach, consider Henry Hitchings' The Language Wars (see my review HERE).
Language Change: Rules versus Comprehension
David Crystal, a respected linguistics professor, cares about rules and grammar (and has written grammar guides), but he cares far more about meaning, comprehension and effect.
He explains the history (and future) of the English language, especially in its written form, in lots of short chapters. It is anecdotal, rather than academic, though it has plenty of facts and references to sources as well.
Our language is a melting pot, not a salad bowl, and language change is inevitable. It has been complained about since Chaucer’s time, yet we still have great writers. Crystal concludes that we shouldn't panic about it and that understanding appropriateness is paramount.
Context and Discernment
Knowing how an engine works does not make you a good driver: you need a feel for the medium and situation as well. Consequently, he pleads for discernment in applying rules; appropriateness and context are recurring themes. The purpose of grammar is for words to make sense; it isn’t an end in itself.
Split Infinitives and Rhythm
There are some intriguing slants on familiar debates. Crystal suggests one reason we are drawn to splitting infinitives is the more natural (iambic) rhythm that can result. (“To boldly go” is weak-strong-weak-strong, but “to go boldly” is weak-strong-strong-weak) He also gives examples where it changes the meaning (“He completely failed to understand” and “He failed to completely understand.”).
Standard English - When it's Good, and When it's Not
Crystal argues that standard English is important so that people from different groups and regions can understand each other, but that non-standard dialects are important for diversity and for group identity. We wear different clothes for different situations and similarly we use different language. Prescriptivists are too fond of “always” and “never”, ignoring context. They are so afraid of ambiguity they seek it where context means it doesn’t exist, and then they apply rules blindly, without exception. He even suggests some of them were so bullied by strict grammarians that they developed Stockholm Syndrome!
That intriguing hyperbole aside, I agree with almost every word in this well-balanced book and can’t recommend it enough.
Potted History and Random Thoughts
Over and Passive Learning: Written and Spoken Language
The written word requires overt teaching in a way that speech does not. It also requires a degree of standardisation because there are no cues of intonation and body language and recipient cannot indicate if they do not understand.
Hybrid Language
In many cases we have the richness of triplets of subtly different words from Saxon, French and Latin (ask, question, interrogate and rest, remainder, residue).
Many of the other silent letters in English were added to help people by indication the Latin route (e.g. “det” became “debt” from “debitum”).
Neologisms are Fine
Why do we worry about neologisms when Shakespeare coined 1,700 words?
(Except he probably didn't coin them. He wrote them down, and his works survive.)
Standardisation (Dictionaries and Usage Guides) to Limit Change
The first serious attempts at standardisation came with the printing press in 1476. There were no dictionaries, local spelling varied hugely (partly because of differing accents), and many of Caxton’s typesetters were Dutch (inserting “gh” in words such as “ghost”), so plenty of inconsistencies slipped through.
In 1664, there was a possibility of an English Academy (along the lines of Académie française), supported by Dryden and Defoe. The Inkhorn Debate (against excessively long Latinate and Greek words) and the Great Vowel Shift get their fair share of space.
Johnson’s wasn’t the first dictionary, but it was a milestone in comprehensiveness and the fact it included quotations as examples.
Spelling is not immutable. Dr Johnson’s dictionary of ~250 years ago includes many spellings that are completely unfamiliar today, and hyphenation changes too (Swift wrote “now a-days”).
Usage changes, even at a fundamental level. For example, Dryden used double comparatives, such as “Contain your spirit in more stricter bounds”.
The first usage guides appeared in the 18th century and these introduced many rules that bore little relation to English as it was used then (even in literate circles) and which persist today. Often they were extrapolations of Latin grammar that had no relevance to English. The obvious example is the rule about not splitting infinitives because it’s impossible to do so in Latin (each is a single word) although that wasn’t banned till the 19th century. The ban on ending a sentence with a preposition comes from the fact that pre-positions were positioned before nouns. Additional motivation for such rules was to distinguish “polite” speech from “impolite”.
Punctuation Change
Punctuation was largely ignored by dictionaries and usage guides till recently, but is still prone to fashion (e.g. Dickens’ use of semi colons).
For possessive “its” lacking an apostrophe (along with “his” and “hers”), Crystal blames 18th century printers who applied the new rule to nouns but forgot to apply it to pronouns.
Political Change - Noah Webster
Webster deliberately changed American spelling, partly to simplify it, but explicitly to distinguish it from the language of the former colonial power: "As an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain should no longer be OUR standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline." (I don't think that quotation is in this book, but it's relevant for this review.)
Accent Snobbery
96% of the UK population has a regional accent, yet in WW2 people complained they couldn’t believe the news when it was read by someone with a regional accent. For much more about this, see Crystal's Sounds Appealing (see my review HERE).
Cover
The title, cover and introduction imply this is largely a response to Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots & Leaves (see my review HERE), but it’s much broader, though she gets many mentions. He was a collaborator on the radio series that spawned her book and he praises and condemns her by turns. Crystal’s main objection is the concept of zero tolerance.
This is not an obscure reference work, but a good overview that is accessible to a general audience. For a slightly more academic approach, consider Henry Hitchings' The Language Wars (see my review HERE).
Language Change: Rules versus Comprehension
David Crystal, a respected linguistics professor, cares about rules and grammar (and has written grammar guides), but he cares far more about meaning, comprehension and effect.
He explains the history (and future) of the English language, especially in its written form, in lots of short chapters. It is anecdotal, rather than academic, though it has plenty of facts and references to sources as well.
Our language is a melting pot, not a salad bowl, and language change is inevitable. It has been complained about since Chaucer’s time, yet we still have great writers. Crystal concludes that we shouldn't panic about it and that understanding appropriateness is paramount.
Context and Discernment
Knowing how an engine works does not make you a good driver: you need a feel for the medium and situation as well. Consequently, he pleads for discernment in applying rules; appropriateness and context are recurring themes. The purpose of grammar is for words to make sense; it isn’t an end in itself.
Split Infinitives and Rhythm
There are some intriguing slants on familiar debates. Crystal suggests one reason we are drawn to splitting infinitives is the more natural (iambic) rhythm that can result. (“To boldly go” is weak-strong-weak-strong, but “to go boldly” is weak-strong-strong-weak) He also gives examples where it changes the meaning (“He completely failed to understand” and “He failed to completely understand.”).
Standard English - When it's Good, and When it's Not
Crystal argues that standard English is important so that people from different groups and regions can understand each other, but that non-standard dialects are important for diversity and for group identity. We wear different clothes for different situations and similarly we use different language. Prescriptivists are too fond of “always” and “never”, ignoring context. They are so afraid of ambiguity they seek it where context means it doesn’t exist, and then they apply rules blindly, without exception. He even suggests some of them were so bullied by strict grammarians that they developed Stockholm Syndrome!
That intriguing hyperbole aside, I agree with almost every word in this well-balanced book and can’t recommend it enough.
Potted History and Random Thoughts
Over and Passive Learning: Written and Spoken Language
The written word requires overt teaching in a way that speech does not. It also requires a degree of standardisation because there are no cues of intonation and body language and recipient cannot indicate if they do not understand.
Hybrid Language
In many cases we have the richness of triplets of subtly different words from Saxon, French and Latin (ask, question, interrogate and rest, remainder, residue).
Many of the other silent letters in English were added to help people by indication the Latin route (e.g. “det” became “debt” from “debitum”).
Neologisms are Fine
Why do we worry about neologisms when Shakespeare coined 1,700 words?
(Except he probably didn't coin them. He wrote them down, and his works survive.)
Standardisation (Dictionaries and Usage Guides) to Limit Change
The first serious attempts at standardisation came with the printing press in 1476. There were no dictionaries, local spelling varied hugely (partly because of differing accents), and many of Caxton’s typesetters were Dutch (inserting “gh” in words such as “ghost”), so plenty of inconsistencies slipped through.
In 1664, there was a possibility of an English Academy (along the lines of Académie française), supported by Dryden and Defoe. The Inkhorn Debate (against excessively long Latinate and Greek words) and the Great Vowel Shift get their fair share of space.
Johnson’s wasn’t the first dictionary, but it was a milestone in comprehensiveness and the fact it included quotations as examples.
Spelling is not immutable. Dr Johnson’s dictionary of ~250 years ago includes many spellings that are completely unfamiliar today, and hyphenation changes too (Swift wrote “now a-days”).
Usage changes, even at a fundamental level. For example, Dryden used double comparatives, such as “Contain your spirit in more stricter bounds”.
The first usage guides appeared in the 18th century and these introduced many rules that bore little relation to English as it was used then (even in literate circles) and which persist today. Often they were extrapolations of Latin grammar that had no relevance to English. The obvious example is the rule about not splitting infinitives because it’s impossible to do so in Latin (each is a single word) although that wasn’t banned till the 19th century. The ban on ending a sentence with a preposition comes from the fact that pre-positions were positioned before nouns. Additional motivation for such rules was to distinguish “polite” speech from “impolite”.
Punctuation Change
Punctuation was largely ignored by dictionaries and usage guides till recently, but is still prone to fashion (e.g. Dickens’ use of semi colons).
For possessive “its” lacking an apostrophe (along with “his” and “hers”), Crystal blames 18th century printers who applied the new rule to nouns but forgot to apply it to pronouns.
Political Change - Noah Webster
Webster deliberately changed American spelling, partly to simplify it, but explicitly to distinguish it from the language of the former colonial power: "As an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain should no longer be OUR standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline." (I don't think that quotation is in this book, but it's relevant for this review.)
Accent Snobbery
96% of the UK population has a regional accent, yet in WW2 people complained they couldn’t believe the news when it was read by someone with a regional accent. For much more about this, see Crystal's Sounds Appealing (see my review HERE).
Cover
The title, cover and introduction imply this is largely a response to Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots & Leaves (see my review HERE), but it’s much broader, though she gets many mentions. He was a collaborator on the radio series that spawned her book and he praises and condemns her by turns. Crystal’s main objection is the concept of zero tolerance.
October 20, 2012
People who complain about pundits are often pundits themselves, and David Crystal is no exception. If I had a nickel for every time Crystal complained about Lynne Truss, I'd be able to buy another copy of her highly entertaining book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. What exactly is Crystal's complaint? Is it that "prescriptive grammarians" should not be determining what is "right" and what is "wrong" with language usage? Or is it simply that Lynne Truss, with her humorous look at punctuation has sold a million copies of her book, while David Crystal, a much more deserving pundit, has been left in the dust?
As far as linguistics is concerned, Crystal has a valid point. The job of a linguist is to observe language in all its variations, to analyze patterns, and then synthesize those patterns in order to discover the underlying linguistic logic. Linguists don't judge,and neither does Crystal. Society, however, does. If you dare defend your right to use "might could" on a college application then you can look forward to a career as a bagger at the local Stop and Shop.
To his credit, Crystal does admit that usage manuals are very important. (As he is quick to point out, he wrote one himself.) It is not the fact that we need to have rules explained that bothers him, it is the attitude of superiority expressed by "pundits" (especially those who have gotten a lot of attention in the media recently). He traces this attitude back through the centuries, to those members of the upper class who not only exerted their privilege through conspicuous consumption, but through the appropriation of "proper" language. The "lewd" members of the laboring masses with their "strange accents" and "ill-shaped sounds" were plainly a lower form of life--and what more convenient means of making the distinction between classes than speech? As we all learned from Henry Higgins, all you have to do is open your mouth to be pigeon-holed. (Henry Higgins, I might point out, had the right solution.)
Unfortunately, it is our lot to be saddled with a language that has a thousand rules, hundreds of variants and a culture that is highly competitive. Unlike the streamlined elegance of Spanish, English is a mess, the result of a fistfight between German and French. Once you throw in the vagaries of Latin, Greek and Dutch spellings, you get a printer's nightmare. How do we sort it all out so that we can understand one another? With prescriptive grammars. Without those pompous, self-righteous, know-it-all pundits, we would be completely lost.
As a literate society this is our fate: to consult our dictionaries early and often, to dog-ear our usage manuals, and to join our third grade teachers when they admonish us with "'ain't' ain't in the dictionary!"
As far as linguistics is concerned, Crystal has a valid point. The job of a linguist is to observe language in all its variations, to analyze patterns, and then synthesize those patterns in order to discover the underlying linguistic logic. Linguists don't judge,and neither does Crystal. Society, however, does. If you dare defend your right to use "might could" on a college application then you can look forward to a career as a bagger at the local Stop and Shop.
To his credit, Crystal does admit that usage manuals are very important. (As he is quick to point out, he wrote one himself.) It is not the fact that we need to have rules explained that bothers him, it is the attitude of superiority expressed by "pundits" (especially those who have gotten a lot of attention in the media recently). He traces this attitude back through the centuries, to those members of the upper class who not only exerted their privilege through conspicuous consumption, but through the appropriation of "proper" language. The "lewd" members of the laboring masses with their "strange accents" and "ill-shaped sounds" were plainly a lower form of life--and what more convenient means of making the distinction between classes than speech? As we all learned from Henry Higgins, all you have to do is open your mouth to be pigeon-holed. (Henry Higgins, I might point out, had the right solution.)
Unfortunately, it is our lot to be saddled with a language that has a thousand rules, hundreds of variants and a culture that is highly competitive. Unlike the streamlined elegance of Spanish, English is a mess, the result of a fistfight between German and French. Once you throw in the vagaries of Latin, Greek and Dutch spellings, you get a printer's nightmare. How do we sort it all out so that we can understand one another? With prescriptive grammars. Without those pompous, self-righteous, know-it-all pundits, we would be completely lost.
As a literate society this is our fate: to consult our dictionaries early and often, to dog-ear our usage manuals, and to join our third grade teachers when they admonish us with "'ain't' ain't in the dictionary!"
May 2, 2016
This is written for those who are interested in English words, how people use them. It's much easier to read than the depth of the subject would suggest. Because it is an overview and yet gives so many clear examples, I think it would be instructive for anyone who loves the English language, uses it, and not just for the English majors.
So many words have been lost. And in a couple of hundred years too, great change to patterns of sounds and sense. With different people adding and altering from far-away from the English island places. Class and economic position consistently adding another thread to the order and the accents and the spelling choices, as it did for the input languages of origins.
Because I've heard English as a second or third or fourth language spoken in such various slants and with so many accents and out of order mistakes or words pronounced so differently! Well, that has made this book even more interesting to me.
Such a change with the printing press. And unto today a world tongue. I'm sure it will continue to alter and switch and be in some difference eternally to its most "desired" sound- but I hope that some of those lost and delicious words are not forgotten completely in the process. With Chaucer and Shakespeare, probably not.
So many words have been lost. And in a couple of hundred years too, great change to patterns of sounds and sense. With different people adding and altering from far-away from the English island places. Class and economic position consistently adding another thread to the order and the accents and the spelling choices, as it did for the input languages of origins.
Because I've heard English as a second or third or fourth language spoken in such various slants and with so many accents and out of order mistakes or words pronounced so differently! Well, that has made this book even more interesting to me.
Such a change with the printing press. And unto today a world tongue. I'm sure it will continue to alter and switch and be in some difference eternally to its most "desired" sound- but I hope that some of those lost and delicious words are not forgotten completely in the process. With Chaucer and Shakespeare, probably not.
May 21, 2016
This is one of the best books I have read about the English Language.
Later, I will buy a used copy (and write a longer review).
Later, I will buy a used copy (and write a longer review).
December 11, 2016
Such a nice book against extreme linguistic pedantry, presented professionally and with humour. I will certainly read other books of the author and also other books on the subject of other specialists. I've always took pleasure in digging deep into intricacies of languages as mediums (first in my native Russian and then in adopted 17 years ago English). Word play is the best dessert for me. Sarcastic word play (with a healthy dose of kindness, though) is an indulgence.
June 17, 2013
I wasn't as thrilled with this book as I hoped. I love discussions of the English language, and I love to see academics tell me that there's no simple prescription for preserving the language; that English is — and must be — a growing language, but this read far too much like a list of things he hates about all the plans that have been proposed to save the language, without much of a plan of his own.
I admit to being incensed when he told us "You have to look hard to find a vestige of a smile in Johnson, Lowth, Murray, Fowler, and all the others" (and not because of the arguably incorrect comma before 'and'). He may even be right, because I don't have Fowler's original A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, only the second and third editions, so perhaps the humor of the second edition is from Gowers, the editor and revisor, but I find it endlessly full of humor - and since Crystal had no advice to offer me to make my English better, Fowler will continue to be my go-to when I question my own usage.
I admit to being incensed when he told us "You have to look hard to find a vestige of a smile in Johnson, Lowth, Murray, Fowler, and all the others" (and not because of the arguably incorrect comma before 'and'). He may even be right, because I don't have Fowler's original A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, only the second and third editions, so perhaps the humor of the second edition is from Gowers, the editor and revisor, but I find it endlessly full of humor - and since Crystal had no advice to offer me to make my English better, Fowler will continue to be my go-to when I question my own usage.
June 8, 2016
A brief history of grammar snobbery with a concluding chapter on how British educators are trying to teach it currently. I'm reading too many of these ;)
June 1, 2023
I adore Crystal; he's introduced me to a delightful passion of mine: English language, which is so interesting to read about if not officially study. I would have liked the historical approach to have continued through the latter section of the book too, but I found the thoughts for the present and future insightful nevertheless.
January 26, 2015
Parts of it are basically The Stories of English Lite. Crystal explores the successions of language critics in an entertaining fashion, but spends too long discussing the British National Curriculum. The whole book is basically an argument against the zero tolerance approach to English.
On second thought, giving it 3.5 stars for helping identify why I so dislike sentence fragments that leave me looking for the verb. Or rather, for identifying why I'd be looking for a verb that isn't there.
[Answer: really long subjects are hard to parse in English, so I hold that long subject in my head for the length of the fragment (which takes effort), don't find it, backtrack, still don't find it, etc. Lesson: avoid long subjects and pointless sentence fragments.]
On second thought, giving it 3.5 stars for helping identify why I so dislike sentence fragments that leave me looking for the verb. Or rather, for identifying why I'd be looking for a verb that isn't there.
[Answer: really long subjects are hard to parse in English, so I hold that long subject in my head for the length of the fragment (which takes effort), don't find it, backtrack, still don't find it, etc. Lesson: avoid long subjects and pointless sentence fragments.]
March 14, 2010
An argument for a realistic, progressive, and contextual approach to English grammar, appropriateness, and ideas of linguistic correctness. Heavy on persuasion and argument and light on explicit detail, this book seems like it was written in a brief amount of time; all the same, the argument is convincing, and the book is a quick, interesting read. For readers interested in a more thorough look at the changing landscape of the English language throughout history, check out Words in Time by Geoffrey Hughes.
April 14, 2013
Okay, language and writing is a passion of mine so there's a chance I was always going to enjoy this work. Crystal, a linguistic expert, explains in layman's terms a variety of aspects of English and how our language is constantly evolving. He puts forward the argument that, although rules are necessary for clear communication, sometimes they need to change in order to keep up with language. Crystal picks apart sections of our language that you may or may not have thought about in a way that invokes brain-tingling excitement.
April 10, 2017
This is a wonderful book, especially for those who consider themselves the "keepers" of other people's language capacity. I am all for language that is readable and enjoyable and well done. But I also recognize (having grown up around pidgins, creoles and patios) that sometimes the purpose is communication, and sometimes usage overwhelms stasis, and that a language grows. A great read; both educational and enjoyable. Not only five stars but, several smiles.
April 8, 2008
A sensitive and humourous call by someone who loves the language to accept appropriate Englishes in the right contexts, instead of insisting on one "correct" and unchanging English. Recommended, even for those who have read Crystal's other works and might find some of his arguments familiar.
March 1, 2016
I bought this specifically to soothe my rage after Lynne Truss' overrated, privileged ranting about apostrophes and it did the job perfectly - if only all language teachers would write and talk in such a soothing, patient and wise way as David Crystal.
October 24, 2020
Review title: Those are fighting words
One of the reasons I call my Goodreads profile "The catholic reader" is that by reading such a catholic--universal--range of books I get to enjoy fortunate pairings like my previous book on Shakespeare's influences on culture and politics and this book on the English language which references Shakespeare's influences on language. Serendipity makes good book fellows.
If the subtitle of The Fight sounds familiar, it is because of the callout to Lynne Truss's surprise bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. In The Fight Crystal, who worked with Truss on a British radio series on language, takes a different tack based on his survey of English vocabulary and grammar, arguing for tolerance instead of prescriptive ("you must always do this") and proscriptive ("you must never do that") approaches. After tracing the language's history of vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and punctuation through the centuries of its transition from Germanic roots to expansion with Latin, Greek, and French borrowings and attempts to establish a standard English based on class--" the King's English"--or regional dialect and usage, Crystal takes exception to the 18th century movement to force a zero tolerance approach:
Samuel Johnson is rightly lauded for his famous dictionary finished in 1755 and for his support for linguistic diversity, but when he lamented the "corruption and decay" in the usage of the language he gave comfort to the zero tolerance side which "moaned about corruption and decay yet here is Johnson, almost a century later, using the English language in his essays as effectively as anyone can imagine. Johnson nevertheless moaned about corruption and decay, yet a century later we find Charles Dickens using the language as effectively as anyone can imagine. . . . A century later we find N--you insert the name of your favourite modern novelist, poet, or dramatist--using the language as effectively as anyone can imagine. Today, some people still moan about corruption and decay. And a century later...? " (p. 92-93)
While Crystal's chapters on the history of the language describe the fight for English as an independent and vital living language, by this point in history and in his book it seems more like a fight with English, as one self-appointed grammarian after another promises to bring clarity by rigid enforcement of their set of rules. The fight ensues: "A century later and we can see the corpses of usage manuals littering the battlefields of English." (p. 157). Why? Because "Knowledge is more powerful than language." (p. 154)
So is our language heading to rack and ruin, and we with it? Crystal thinks not, writing in 2006, and the time since has confirmed his optimism. The explosion of English as the language of commerce, popular culture, and social media shows that it is vibrant, constantly evolving, and well enough governed with and without prescriptive feedback to be understood as the shared language of billions. Clarity remains the goal, knowledge remains the power, and language, the English we fight for, remains the source.
One of the reasons I call my Goodreads profile "The catholic reader" is that by reading such a catholic--universal--range of books I get to enjoy fortunate pairings like my previous book on Shakespeare's influences on culture and politics and this book on the English language which references Shakespeare's influences on language. Serendipity makes good book fellows.
If the subtitle of The Fight sounds familiar, it is because of the callout to Lynne Truss's surprise bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. In The Fight Crystal, who worked with Truss on a British radio series on language, takes a different tack based on his survey of English vocabulary and grammar, arguing for tolerance instead of prescriptive ("you must always do this") and proscriptive ("you must never do that") approaches. After tracing the language's history of vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and punctuation through the centuries of its transition from Germanic roots to expansion with Latin, Greek, and French borrowings and attempts to establish a standard English based on class--" the King's English"--or regional dialect and usage, Crystal takes exception to the 18th century movement to force a zero tolerance approach:
There is no simple relationship between clarity and language. Apart from a few well-known exceptions, such as in poetry and politics ('Now let me be absolutely clear about this...'), everyone wants to be clear, and everyone admires clarity of expression in others. But clarity cannot be achieved by forbidding the use of whole areas of language, such as figures of speech or classical vocabulary, for the obvious reason that a thought might be best expressed by using precisely those means. Even science makes copious use of metaphors: witness the 'flavours' of quarks in particle physics, or the 'blind watchmaker' of evolutionary biology.
Clarity depends on our making judicious use of all of a language's resources. Words, grammar, rhythm, discourse, and stylistic level all play their part. It is never possible to identify a single dimension or principle of usage, or a cluster of 'rules', and say that these are obligatory features of clarity of expression. When people try to do this, they invariably end up . . . breaking the very principles they have themselves promulgated. We shall see this happening repeatedly, as criticisms of usage grow. (p. 65}
Samuel Johnson is rightly lauded for his famous dictionary finished in 1755 and for his support for linguistic diversity, but when he lamented the "corruption and decay" in the usage of the language he gave comfort to the zero tolerance side which "moaned about corruption and decay yet here is Johnson, almost a century later, using the English language in his essays as effectively as anyone can imagine. Johnson nevertheless moaned about corruption and decay, yet a century later we find Charles Dickens using the language as effectively as anyone can imagine. . . . A century later we find N--you insert the name of your favourite modern novelist, poet, or dramatist--using the language as effectively as anyone can imagine. Today, some people still moan about corruption and decay. And a century later...? " (p. 92-93)
While Crystal's chapters on the history of the language describe the fight for English as an independent and vital living language, by this point in history and in his book it seems more like a fight with English, as one self-appointed grammarian after another promises to bring clarity by rigid enforcement of their set of rules. The fight ensues: "A century later and we can see the corpses of usage manuals littering the battlefields of English." (p. 157). Why? Because "Knowledge is more powerful than language." (p. 154)
So is our language heading to rack and ruin, and we with it? Crystal thinks not, writing in 2006, and the time since has confirmed his optimism. The explosion of English as the language of commerce, popular culture, and social media shows that it is vibrant, constantly evolving, and well enough governed with and without prescriptive feedback to be understood as the shared language of billions. Clarity remains the goal, knowledge remains the power, and language, the English we fight for, remains the source.
January 10, 2019
Despite enjoying Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves, I found Crystal's response at least equally enjoyable and useful. Most of the book is a history of linguistic pedantry, beginning all the way back in Ælfric's day when students were threatened with beatings for making inaccurate copies. Crystal uses this history (which reads like selections from Stories of English--not a bad thing) in order to show the utter futility of "protecting" language from change that some have deemed harmful, including the inclusions of new and often foreign words, shortenings/alterations in spelling, complete upsets in pronunciation, and the adoption of new rules for punctuation. These changes were often initially perceived as "errors" or regionalisms (perhaps today we'd call them "slang") but inevitably, when they caught on, these were the new normal.
This is indeed a good point for today's teachers and pedants of all kind to keep in mind: what's "wrong" today may be a matter of course tomorrow. And, it's also worth investigating our motives behind these judgments. Are we, for instance, judging the speech of "outsiders" as "incorrect" when they are speaking with an accent or regional dialect? Also, are we overemphasizing the compliance of nonsensical traditions of writing and speaking that don't actually aid clarity in any way? Crystal picks on the common bugbear, the split infinitive, as well as the pretty dead (hopefully) rule of thumb that you don't end a sentence in a preposition.
In this regard, I was disappointed that Crystal didn't take more risks and point out rules that are at the heart of grammar debates today: singular "they," who/whom, the capitalization of "I," and disappearing apostrophes. I suppose he's writing more than 10 years ago so I can't fault him too much, but these issues didn't start today, and I think most teachers could have seen them coming down the track for a while now.
While I agree with Crystal's thesis--that we should avoid nonsensical pedantry but still teach (some?) grammatical rules in order to foster awareness and greater choice in writing--I do think he very nearly makes Truss a strawman in his argument. Her "zero tolerance" approach is obviously trumped up with hyperbole, but is also a reaction against not caring about grammar and standardization at all, a position that Crystal, as a linguist, obviously shares. He also isn't entirely clear about his overall proposal to teach grammar in schools without all the anxiety of previous ages about doing it "right" or "wrong." Perhaps in Crystal's other books he has less of a rhetorical gloss over these details, but, to me, when teachers say that they don't teacher "grammar" it seems that what they really mean is that they don't teach the traditional vocabulary of grammar (parts of speech, subject/predicate etc), but still do expect and grade on compliance with it. Some go even further to argue that teaching writing should not even touch grammar, but, like Crystal, I think this limits students more than it helps them.
Can we teach grammar awareness without the judgy, my-language-is-better-than-yours, morally-superior attitude? I'm actually not sure. I'll keep trying as an English teacher myself, but I also think there's a good deal of human nature to overcome in doing so--for both teachers and students. People like to be "right" and critique others on very clearly demarcated "rules." It appeals to our sense of fairness, as least in Western culture. We also equate language skill/compliance with intelligence, politeness, and a ton of other social and personal traits. As much as Truss commits these linguistic sins, her popularity also demonstrates that the "language pundit" in all of us hasn't truly "left" and the language-policing attitude will probably continue on for a good while yet, no matter what Crystal says.
This is indeed a good point for today's teachers and pedants of all kind to keep in mind: what's "wrong" today may be a matter of course tomorrow. And, it's also worth investigating our motives behind these judgments. Are we, for instance, judging the speech of "outsiders" as "incorrect" when they are speaking with an accent or regional dialect? Also, are we overemphasizing the compliance of nonsensical traditions of writing and speaking that don't actually aid clarity in any way? Crystal picks on the common bugbear, the split infinitive, as well as the pretty dead (hopefully) rule of thumb that you don't end a sentence in a preposition.
In this regard, I was disappointed that Crystal didn't take more risks and point out rules that are at the heart of grammar debates today: singular "they," who/whom, the capitalization of "I," and disappearing apostrophes. I suppose he's writing more than 10 years ago so I can't fault him too much, but these issues didn't start today, and I think most teachers could have seen them coming down the track for a while now.
While I agree with Crystal's thesis--that we should avoid nonsensical pedantry but still teach (some?) grammatical rules in order to foster awareness and greater choice in writing--I do think he very nearly makes Truss a strawman in his argument. Her "zero tolerance" approach is obviously trumped up with hyperbole, but is also a reaction against not caring about grammar and standardization at all, a position that Crystal, as a linguist, obviously shares. He also isn't entirely clear about his overall proposal to teach grammar in schools without all the anxiety of previous ages about doing it "right" or "wrong." Perhaps in Crystal's other books he has less of a rhetorical gloss over these details, but, to me, when teachers say that they don't teacher "grammar" it seems that what they really mean is that they don't teach the traditional vocabulary of grammar (parts of speech, subject/predicate etc), but still do expect and grade on compliance with it. Some go even further to argue that teaching writing should not even touch grammar, but, like Crystal, I think this limits students more than it helps them.
Can we teach grammar awareness without the judgy, my-language-is-better-than-yours, morally-superior attitude? I'm actually not sure. I'll keep trying as an English teacher myself, but I also think there's a good deal of human nature to overcome in doing so--for both teachers and students. People like to be "right" and critique others on very clearly demarcated "rules." It appeals to our sense of fairness, as least in Western culture. We also equate language skill/compliance with intelligence, politeness, and a ton of other social and personal traits. As much as Truss commits these linguistic sins, her popularity also demonstrates that the "language pundit" in all of us hasn't truly "left" and the language-policing attitude will probably continue on for a good while yet, no matter what Crystal says.
November 24, 2020
For as long as I can remember, I have found myself on the prescriptivist side of arguments about English usage. Now I suppose that, like an apple in the root cellar, one softens with age. I am still quite prepared to argue in support of the Oxford Comma and to rale against grocer's misuse of the apostrophe. My Cilia of Suspicion begin to quiver when I hear or read something in the passive voice obfuscating the identity of the actor in the sentence. When a comparative adjective (better, cheaper, faster, cleaner) is used without a referent, I become annoyed. Conversely, I split my own infinitives without guilt. I verb the occasional noun. And I begin the occasional sentence with a conjunction. You wanna make something of it!? Generally speaking, the English speak better English than do Americans, except when they don't. Generally speaking, a verb must agree with the noun to which it refers in number. The British oddly say "the jury were unable to agree" whilst Americans say "the jury was unable to agree." The British use "shall" where Americans use "will" and neither use either very well. And how curious that Americans fill out a form while the British person sitting next to them fills in the same form. David Crystal is grammarian or a linguist or a philologist or some combination of those things. He is very famous in England because he is forever on the BBC talking about language or in book shops selling his latest book (of over one hundred) on how to write good. And he is not a prescriptivist. One might have thought to spare the effort of reading 239 pages were it not for the saving grace that he is right about some things. His argument against reign-of-terror prescriptivism is that it is outdated, makes no sense, discriminates against dialects, and tries to herd Germanic sheep by yelling at them in Latin. He argues for a rule of appropriateness: that language should be used appropriately its setting and intended audience. It is so simple as to be inarguable. The person reading the weather forecast speaks slightly different English than does the preacher in the pulpit. The TV scriptwriter's English differs from the poet writing iambic pentameter. The Cockney and the Cajun make themselves well understood within their respective groups but likely not as well with each other. The medical doctor uses different language to write a paper for publication that that used at home to talk to one's children. Crystal suggests that a better understanding of grammar is the mechanism whereby language is made most intelligible in its setting. Not a bad premise; not a bad book.
November 16, 2024
This book tries to do two things and does one of them quite well.
First, the author discusses the history of language punditry over the last millennium. In this pursuit, he covers the various methods language authorities attempted to both change and constrain the use of the language, often to no effect and sometimes to detrimental effect. The history is entertaining and extensive, and lays a good foundation for discussions of proper (and "proper") usage today.
Second, the author attempts to make a case for the then-current (the book was published in 2006) style of language instruction in the UK, which rather devolves into apologia. Even though I have great sympathy for the philosophy of that style, I find the language used to be defensive and unconvincing, and this section of the book irrelevant to anyone not involved intimately in UK grammar instruction at the beginning of the 21st century.
Overall, this book is very much worth reading, though I suspect skimming the last 10% of the book would be sufficient for most readers.
First, the author discusses the history of language punditry over the last millennium. In this pursuit, he covers the various methods language authorities attempted to both change and constrain the use of the language, often to no effect and sometimes to detrimental effect. The history is entertaining and extensive, and lays a good foundation for discussions of proper (and "proper") usage today.
Second, the author attempts to make a case for the then-current (the book was published in 2006) style of language instruction in the UK, which rather devolves into apologia. Even though I have great sympathy for the philosophy of that style, I find the language used to be defensive and unconvincing, and this section of the book irrelevant to anyone not involved intimately in UK grammar instruction at the beginning of the 21st century.
Overall, this book is very much worth reading, though I suspect skimming the last 10% of the book would be sufficient for most readers.
October 13, 2020
Giving up about half way through, which I so rarely do.
I really wanted to like this -- the subject matter is excellent and I wholeheartedly agree with Crystal's thesis, but as a writer Crystal could not be more obnoxious and I just could not take it any more.
This book was like being stuck in a really important meeting that is commandeered by that guy, who only wants to hear himself talk and ruins the topic for everyone else.
I really wanted to like this -- the subject matter is excellent and I wholeheartedly agree with Crystal's thesis, but as a writer Crystal could not be more obnoxious and I just could not take it any more.
This book was like being stuck in a really important meeting that is commandeered by that guy, who only wants to hear himself talk and ruins the topic for everyone else.
February 25, 2022
A short, compact book full of information that I was nervous to start but ended up greatly enjoying. The author's voice was kind, amusing, and kept me intrigued. I skipped a chunk in the middle that seemed a bit nit-picky and not as interesting as the rest, though I may go back to it later. I learned a lot about the development of language and its importance to the people that use it.
October 6, 2025
My A-level English teacher gave this to me as a parting gift before I embarked on the terrible journey that is studying English at undergrad. SO glad she did. It’s been over four years now and my grammar is still absolute shite. Love ya Mrs P. But in all seriousness, this was incredibly helpful and I read it often.
Read
December 17, 2024""
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 3, 2025
A counter to Eats, shoots and leaves. Fascinating as ever.
July 11, 2010
Writing response to the hugely popular Eats Shoots and Leaves, in The Fight for English renowned linguist David Crystal puts forward the case against the ‘zero tolerance’ approach to language favoured by Lynne Truss and her fellow grammar ‘pedants’ and ‘sticklers’.
By following the evolution of English Crystal documents the history of people’s awareness, concern and condemnation of what they considered ‘incorrect’ usage. In doing so he successfully highlights how the English language, like any other, is constantly evolving, with new standards and ideas of what is or isn’t correct often contradicting those that were in place just a few generations previously.
Crystal then discusses several aspects of English more specifically, recounting the attitudes and changing standards of pronunciation, grammar, spelling and Truss’ pet peeve, punctuation. He also offers and insight into how changes in the British school curriculum contributed to people’s passionate opinions about what is right or wrong – sticklers' concerns are certainly more understandable when you remember older generations had the supposedly ‘wrong’ grammar literally beaten out of them.
Crystal’s argument is largely that instead of being so outraged by perceived ‘incorrect’ language we need instead to acknowledge and appreciate ‘appropriate’ language for any particular context, and in the education system help students to develop a linguistic awareness to recognise what that is.
Such a book about language history, structure and grammar teaching may appear to be a bore to some but Crystal’s informative, clear, humorous style and the ogranisation of his discussion in short, easily-digestible chapters makes The Fight for English an entirely accessible and interesting read.
By following the evolution of English Crystal documents the history of people’s awareness, concern and condemnation of what they considered ‘incorrect’ usage. In doing so he successfully highlights how the English language, like any other, is constantly evolving, with new standards and ideas of what is or isn’t correct often contradicting those that were in place just a few generations previously.
Crystal then discusses several aspects of English more specifically, recounting the attitudes and changing standards of pronunciation, grammar, spelling and Truss’ pet peeve, punctuation. He also offers and insight into how changes in the British school curriculum contributed to people’s passionate opinions about what is right or wrong – sticklers' concerns are certainly more understandable when you remember older generations had the supposedly ‘wrong’ grammar literally beaten out of them.
Crystal’s argument is largely that instead of being so outraged by perceived ‘incorrect’ language we need instead to acknowledge and appreciate ‘appropriate’ language for any particular context, and in the education system help students to develop a linguistic awareness to recognise what that is.
Such a book about language history, structure and grammar teaching may appear to be a bore to some but Crystal’s informative, clear, humorous style and the ogranisation of his discussion in short, easily-digestible chapters makes The Fight for English an entirely accessible and interesting read.
January 5, 2012
This book should be required reading for anybody who cares about the English language. Although David Crystal is a linguist he passionately believes that our language must evolve. It can never be preserved in aspic. To endorse this belief he reminds us that Samuel Johnson saw the error of his way, and proclaimed that language can never be fixed. Crystal goes on to state:
You cannot stop language change. You may not like it; you may regret the arrival of new
forms and the passing of old ones; but there is not the slightest thing you can do about
it. Language change is as natural as breathing. It is one of the linguistic facts of life.
He charts the evolution of the English language, both verbal and written, from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day when American English is more the norm than the exception. He analyses the changes in our language over the centuries and discusses how the pedants and moralisers have tried to impose rules and regulations. How regional accents and dialects have been derided, and how writers, such as Shakespeare, have been retrospectively criticised for making grammatical errors.
Crystal reaches an optimistic conclusion that allows for changes to the English language. He is pleased that the teaching of grammar has been reintroduced to schools, but in a far less prescriptive and proscriptive manner that now permits children to understand and questions the rules.
It's time to go with the flow and accept that the English language has never stood still, nor will it in the future. And there is nothing wrong with starting a question with a conjunction and ending it with a preposition.
You cannot stop language change. You may not like it; you may regret the arrival of new
forms and the passing of old ones; but there is not the slightest thing you can do about
it. Language change is as natural as breathing. It is one of the linguistic facts of life.
He charts the evolution of the English language, both verbal and written, from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day when American English is more the norm than the exception. He analyses the changes in our language over the centuries and discusses how the pedants and moralisers have tried to impose rules and regulations. How regional accents and dialects have been derided, and how writers, such as Shakespeare, have been retrospectively criticised for making grammatical errors.
Crystal reaches an optimistic conclusion that allows for changes to the English language. He is pleased that the teaching of grammar has been reintroduced to schools, but in a far less prescriptive and proscriptive manner that now permits children to understand and questions the rules.
It's time to go with the flow and accept that the English language has never stood still, nor will it in the future. And there is nothing wrong with starting a question with a conjunction and ending it with a preposition.
May 28, 2009
This is the third book I've read by author David Crystal and it's by far my favorite. His book provides and engaging and concise history of the English language, right up until present day changes in educational practices in the United Kingdom that put grammar back into the classroom.
David Crystal hails from the UK, so most of his examples - like Lynn Truss' "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves," which he is spends a good deal of time alternately applauding and criticizing - are of British English. This should in no way be a deterrent for an American interested in the history of the English language. He does speak to some of the differences between the two; it's not like American English is completely forgotten. Besides, American English stems from British English, so it's good to know where our language comes from, right?
As for his references to Lynn Truss' "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves," well, I'm not quite sure what to make of them. I couldn't decide if he really thought his feelings (academically supported or not) had to be placed throughout his book because he had to get it off his chest or because he was jealous of her mainstream success. Or maybe he was just riding on the coattails of her success and hoping to get a more academic, yet easily accessible, language book into the hands of the masses.
Regardless, I enjoyed it.
David Crystal hails from the UK, so most of his examples - like Lynn Truss' "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves," which he is spends a good deal of time alternately applauding and criticizing - are of British English. This should in no way be a deterrent for an American interested in the history of the English language. He does speak to some of the differences between the two; it's not like American English is completely forgotten. Besides, American English stems from British English, so it's good to know where our language comes from, right?
As for his references to Lynn Truss' "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves," well, I'm not quite sure what to make of them. I couldn't decide if he really thought his feelings (academically supported or not) had to be placed throughout his book because he had to get it off his chest or because he was jealous of her mainstream success. Or maybe he was just riding on the coattails of her success and hoping to get a more academic, yet easily accessible, language book into the hands of the masses.
Regardless, I enjoyed it.
November 6, 2011
Brilliant. Crystal gives a clear and well thought through argument against the "zero tolerance" approach to language in general. For years I've felt the prescriptive approach, encapsulated by Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots and Leaves, was wrong, too restrictive and with no acknowledgement that English is a living, changing language. However I could never articulate it. Now I can.
Language needs to change; we shouldn't be out to stop all those changes. We need to manage change if only to maintain clarity. Crystal does not advocate an "anything goes" approach, far from it. He says there are rules, he has written a Grammar book himself, but language learners need to understand context and appropriateness. Using full, formal language in a text message, for example, would be ridiculous. On the other hand using txt spk in a letter to your bank manager would be equally ridiculous.
Language is changing. There is nothing anyone can do about that, the internet has seen to that. Crystal predicts that the Internet will become a linguistic institution in the not so distant future. The internet has already changed our vocabulary. It will do much more.
Language needs to change; we shouldn't be out to stop all those changes. We need to manage change if only to maintain clarity. Crystal does not advocate an "anything goes" approach, far from it. He says there are rules, he has written a Grammar book himself, but language learners need to understand context and appropriateness. Using full, formal language in a text message, for example, would be ridiculous. On the other hand using txt spk in a letter to your bank manager would be equally ridiculous.
Language is changing. There is nothing anyone can do about that, the internet has seen to that. Crystal predicts that the Internet will become a linguistic institution in the not so distant future. The internet has already changed our vocabulary. It will do much more.
December 14, 2013
Lynn Truss's runaway bestseller Eats, Shoots and Leaves sparked a lot of criticism and praise from language lovers and punctuation pundits. But wait, Crystal says. Is her theme of "zero tolerance" really appropriate? He argues that it's not, and shows in a series of short essays how English is an evolving language, and sometimes change is good. Moreover, there's not actually black and white in the rules of English, and by having such a strong reaction to it, you're actually hurting people who are trying to learn it.
I really dislike Lynn Truss. Her second book, Talk to the Hand, was offensive. I rarely put books down, but I got rid of her book. For someone who is so interested in politeness and etiquette, she's really a b--- to anyone who isn't exactly like her. So I appreciate someone who can refute her work calmly ;)
Not all of the book is written to antagonize Truss though. It's a history of English and punctuation that was inspired by Truss's book, and provides a different perspective on how English developed, and how it works and is taught today. I thought it was engaging and interesting.
I really dislike Lynn Truss. Her second book, Talk to the Hand, was offensive. I rarely put books down, but I got rid of her book. For someone who is so interested in politeness and etiquette, she's really a b--- to anyone who isn't exactly like her. So I appreciate someone who can refute her work calmly ;)
Not all of the book is written to antagonize Truss though. It's a history of English and punctuation that was inspired by Truss's book, and provides a different perspective on how English developed, and how it works and is taught today. I thought it was engaging and interesting.
July 2, 2013
This book begins as an informative history of the English language and its teaching. About a third of the way through it begins to hint at dire problems ahead. Beyond that point it rapidly descends into finger-pointing and a bible-thumping condemnation of prescriptivist grammarians. Crystal makes some valid points. Yes, language change is inevitable. However, he tends toward an either-or position whose relevance only really becomes clear in the last few chapters when he reveals his heavy involvement in the creation and promotion of Britain's English National Curriculum. It would have been better if he'd come out and stated that the book was a defense of the philosophy behind this curriculum. I'm not sure I have that many fundamental disagreements with Mr. Crystal, but he lacks the ethos to win me over completely. I'll relish the first portion of this book as a reference on the history of grammar, but the rest of it will remain salted with my argumentative notes in the margins.
October 3, 2015
What a difference not being assigned to read this book for class makes! I remember clearly really dragging my feet on reading this one, but reading it now, I really enjoyed it. I honestly cannot name a single issue that I had with the way it was written. The topic was interesting, the content solid, the prose by turns witty and serious. Oh, and far and away the thing I liked best about it was actually a formatting decision. The chapters were short! Maybe 10 pages or so if you hit a particularly long one. This is particularly important for me because I'm usually reading books on the go, either on the Metro or over a meal. Short chapters give me lots of plausible places to stop without needing to reread the last few pages the next time in order to figure out what was going on when I left off. I love linguistics books. I don't get to read them enough, and this was a very good one.
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