Don't Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth About Language

by David Shariatmadari

A linguist’s entertaining and highly informed guide to what languages are and how they function.

Think you know language? Think again.

There are languages that change when your mother-in-law is present.
The language you speak could make you more prone to accidents.
Swear words are produced in a special part of your brain.

Over the past few decades, we have reached new frontiers of linguistic knowledge. Linguists can now explain how and why language changes, describe its structures, and map its activity in the brain. But despite these advances, much of what people believe about language is based on folklore, instinct, or hearsay. We imagine a word’s origin is it’s “true” meaning, that foreign languages are full of “untranslatable” words, or that grammatical mistakes undermine English.

In Don’t Believe A Word, linguist David Shariatmadari takes us on a mind-boggling journey through the science of language, urging us to abandon our prejudices in a bid to uncover the (far more interesting) truth about what we do with words.

Exploding nine widely held myths about language while introducing us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics, Shariatmadari is an energetic guide to the beauty and quirkiness of humanity’s greatest achievement.

Genres: Nonfiction, Linguistics, Language, Science, Psychology, Audiobook, History

327 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 22, 2019

Reviews

[Jo-Ann Duff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t Believe A Word is a real treat for any word nerd or writer. It’s a book about the science of language, so you need to settle into your favourite book nook and avoid all distractions. You need to be in the linguistic zone and feeling focussed if you want to get the most out of this engrossing read.

Think about a time you were on holiday overseas and how instantly comforting it was to hear someone with a familiar accent. You have no idea if this person is Ted Bundy 2.0 or a sketchy con artist about to take you for a ride, but you assume they’ll be friendly. You are more likely to be wary and heighten your street smarts when surrounded by a bunch of foreign locals. However, in a strange land, when you hear a familiar voice from home, you are probably a little more open.

I particularly loved learning the origin of some words such as Lucifer and toilet, and how, over time they now mean something utterly different. I also loved the discovery story of the Rosetta Stone and just how important that discovery was to deciphering long ago languages.

At the back of the book, there is an extensive glossary and pages packed full of references for any word nerd to devour. Just be careful you don’t fall down the rabbit hole of language. If you do, make sure your book nook is set up for a long sitting with supplies at arms reach.

Author David Shariatmadari is an expert in his field and the passion he has for words really shines brightly within the pages. There is plenty to learn with Don’t Believe A Word and some myths which are busted were a revelation to me. A thoroughly enjoyable and fascinating read!

[عبدالرحمن عقاب · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب جميل وممتع. يعرض لقضايا لغوية عديدة. تلك اللغة التي لا نستطيع الفكاك منها، ولا نستطيع التفكير بها إلا من خلالها، كما يقول الكاتب في مقدمته.
يبدأ الكتاب بتفنيد بعض المسلمات المتداولة، مثل: تدهور اللغة، وقيمة المعاني الأصيلة للكلمات، و القدرة على المفاضلة بين اللغات.
كما يعرض لقضايا الترجمة، ووجود ما لا يترجم. واتساع دلالة اللغة لتشمل أكثر من مجرد الكلمات. كما تحدث عن فطرية القدرة اللغوية ونظرية تشومسكي، والعلاقة بين اللهجات واللغات والتوالد بينها، وكذلك قدرتنا على الإمساك بالمعنى الدقيق للكلمة أو قدرتنا على التحكم بالمعنى اللغوي لما نقول.
وهي مواضيع ممتعة ومثيرة لاهتمام أي مهتم باللغة التي يتحدث بها أو اللغات التي يتحدث بها الناس.
وللحقّ فإنّ جزءًا من أطروحات الكتاب سبق لي قراءتها في كتاب (مغالطات اللغوية) للدكتور عادل مصطفى. وهو كتاب يستحقّ القراءة قبل هذا الكتاب أو بعده، خاصة لبعده العربي الخاص.
الكاتب إيراني درس عدة لغات، وحديثه وأمثلته لم يقتصر على الإنجليزية.
وأسلوبه في الكتابة وطرح أفكاره وتكاملها ضمن كل فصل جميل. وقد نجح في الابتعاد عن الإسهاب الذي يغري الكاتب في مثل هذه المواضيع.

[foteini_dl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Έχεις διαβάσει πόσες λέξεις, έχεις γράψει πόσες λέξεις και έρχεται ο Shariatmadari (ωραίο επίθετο, κάνει ρίμα και με το "ντάρι ντάρι ντάρι ντάρι, στο γυαλί πετούν οι γλάροι") να σου πει "Don't believe a word". Και πολύ καλά κάνει, και μπράβο του και ζήτω.

Μέσα από 9 κεφάλαια καταρρίπτει (ή έστω αμφισβητεί/ είναι σκεπτικός) με βασικούς μύθους γύρω από τη γλώσσα. Από τον πιο βασικό, το ότι η (αγγλική) γλώσσα φθίνει μέχρι τον μύθο περί αμετάφραστων λέξεων και ανώτερων και κατώτερων γλωσσών ("εχμ, γκάιζ, είναι θέμα δύναμης, πολιτικής και γεωγραφικής θέσης"), και τη θεωρία του Τσόμσκι περί universal language.

Και το κάνει πετυχημένα. Σοβαρά εκεί που πρέπει, πιο ανάλαφρα εκεί που τον παίρνει (με αναφορές ακόμα και στους Beatles και τη Madonna). Ισορροπία über alles.

Αλλά ό,τι και να πω εγώ, δεν πιάνει μια μπροστά στα λόγια του Stephen Fry "You finish the book more alive than ever to the enduring mystery and miracle of that thing that makes us more human". Όσο και αν δεν μ' αρέσει να βλέπω σχόλια σε εξώφυλλα και οπισθόφυλλα, ο Fry είναι ό,τι πρέπει αν θες να προμοτάρεις κάτι. Θα μπορούσα να τον δω ακόμα και σε διαφήμιση οδοντόκρεμας, δηλαδή (εδώ έχουμε δει τον Κούρκουλο, γιατί όχι και αυτόν τον θεούλη;).

[Nicole Finch · Rating 3 out of 5]

To put my review in context, here's my background with linguistics: I've studied language and linguistics for fun at the amateur level since I was a kid, and I studied linguistics at the undergraduate level, and majored in foreign languages. If you already have a good amateur background in linguistics and language history, this book won't teach you anything you don't already know. If you have no background in linguistics, but are interested in getting some, then this is a great introductory book to help you learn some fun and interesting concepts. The rest of my review summarizes what each chapter covers, and then I'll make some recommendations for further learning.

Each chapter is supposed to refute a common misconception about language. Some chapters work better than others.

Chapter 1 is a refutation of the argument that English (or any language) is diminishing in elegance or usefulness because of "bad grammar" or "internet speak" or whatever "kids these days" argument old fuddy-duddies are making. It goes through the history of language fuddy-duddies through time, and how common it is for older people to feel like language is "degenerating" when it changes in perfectly normal ways they have trouble keeping up with.

Chapter 2 refutes the argument that etymology is the be-all, end-all of any word's definition, and you should always go back to the original meaning of a word in order to understand what it should mean now. This is a stupid argument, and easily refuted.

Chapter 3 didn't hang together for me very well at all. Shariatmadari seems to equate code-switching with traumatic aphasia to refute the argument that individuals control exactly how they speak. I enjoyed the anecdotes in this chapter, but I don't think it was a coherent argument.

Chapter 4 was the worst one, in my opinion. It unquestioningly accepts the premise that Koko the gorilla learned to speak, without taking into account any of the recent scholarship debunking the whole Koko experiment. I agree with the author that animals can communicate, but human communication via language is in a totally different category than the animal communication we've been able to study so far. After reading this chapter, I honestly don't even know what he was trying to prove.

Chapter 5 debunks the Sapir-Whorf theory, which is great. That theory is always ripe for a good debunking. (If you've ever heard someone say "Eskimos have 16 different words for snow!" and thought that was pretty cool, you should definitely read this chapter. Also, stop saying "Eskimo," because it's racist.)

Chapter 6 explains languages and dialects, and how trying to differentiate between those two definitions is a waste of time.

Chapter 7 discusses how communication goes beyond the literal words we say, and why AIs still can't pass the Turing test. It discusses pragmatics and Paul Grice's cooperative principle of conversation. I wasn't familiar with either of these things, so I learned some interesting new concepts from this chapter, but I have to assume other students of linguistics will already know about this.

Chapter 8 refutes the argument that any language can be "superior" to any other language. This is also great. Considering some languages "primitive" is definitely racist and not borne out by the evidence.

Chapter 9 refutes Noam Chomsky's "universal grammar" argument. This was the chapter most interesting to me, because when I was in college, we read Chomsky and Pinker uncritically. I really appreciated this book's breakdown of how the evidence doesn't fit the theory, and I'm glad to learn that linguists were out doing the actual fieldwork to determine this. Hopefully, people with a more current linguistic education than mine already know this.

In short, I'll reiterate that this book is a good beginner's overview, but people with a linguistic background can skip it.

For further information, I recommend the following podcasts:

You're Wrong About: The "Ebonics" Controversy
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

You're Wrong About: Koko the Gorilla
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

The Allusionist podcast is entirely about language and linguistics, and it goes into detail on the widely varied topics in each episode. I always learn something new from this podcast.
https://www.theallusionist.org/

[Meagan Houle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this one, aspiring linguistics geek that I am. The subtitle, "the surprising truth about language," feels a little click-baitish. There's nothing overstated here, no extraordinary claims absent the requisite extraordinary evidence. But it breaks down theories well, and taught me plenty I didn't know about the way languages work. The book doesn't focus too heavily on English, either, which I appreciated.
I will say that there was a little more emphasis on language as a fundamental component of humanity than I was happy with. There is some acknowledgement of sign language, which was nice, but for the most part, nonverbal people--those who neither speak nor write--were more or less erased, as though their lack of language somehow makes them less human. I don't believe this was intentional, however. I suppose it's logical, if not ideal, that a linguist would connect linguistic ability with humanity in a way others may not. Given his many cogent takedowns of racism and other biases that have crept into our understanding of language, I doubt the author was intending to dismiss an entire marginalized group. I'm not a scholar, nor am I an expert on anything in particular, but as a disabled person I do tend to see this unwitting erasure where others wouldn't. Be warned that you may see it, too, and that it can be a bit distracting, especially nearer the beginning.
I will also say that if you pick this one up, be prepared to go slowly and give it your full attention. Once Shariatmadari gets going, he delves deeply and doesn't always leave a lot of time for readers to catch up. Read the footnotes, they're helpful, and reread sections that confuse you. Once he introduces a term, you'll likely see it crop up over and over, so it won't be a fun experience if you get too lost early on.
With those caveats in mind, enjoy!

[Silvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was sent this book as an advance listening copy via libro.fm for reviewing purposes, but all opinions are my own.

I really liked listening to this, I've always been interested in language in a broad sense and the premise of this book immediately made me want to start it.

I knew nothing about linguistics so I can't say whether this was an advanced book or not, certainly experts of the field will be able to judge it differently than me but I thought things were explained clearly for someone like me and I never found it too difficult.

Because of its format (I listened to the audiobook) there were certain parts that felt a bit awkward and I would have maybe wished to read myself, but overall it was a great listen and if you can only do nonfiction in audio format (like me) I highly recommend it.

[Erikka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this, even if I found it a bit long and repetitive in parts. The author basically takes a collection of myths about language and solidly disproves them with well-cited evidence. He is a rampant anti-Chomskyan, which I fully appreciate, but I did feel that some examples were a bit too fleshed out. I found myself saying "yes, I get the point, move on" quite a few times. As a result, rampant skimming occurred in some chapters. My favorite chapter was the disproving of "Italian is a language." That was a unique discussion of language vs dialect, quoting my linguist hero and astounding podcast host John McWhorter. This is worth a read and can be read as a linguistic novice thanks to the exceptional glossary, but there's even stuff to learn for a linguistics nerd like me.

[Ashley Marilynne Wong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book gave me that warm, nostalgic, lovely feeling.

Don’t Believe a Word covers all the things I’ve learnt in my linguistics modules at uni – and more – only much more comprehensively.

‘And nearly twenty years after I first opened the door myself, I’ve found that – however much you study it – language is a subject that will never exhaust your capacity for wonder.’
- David Shariatmadari, British linguist 🌟

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't Believe a Word by David Shariatmadari

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...


If you are a language nerd, then you will start finding that books on linguistics begin to run together. They often make the same revelations and cover the same territory. This book had a lot of that going on.

Nonetheless, each such book has its own nuance. This book had enough new details to make it stand out. For example, to boil it down to a nub, it seems that Noam Chomsky's universal grammar is probably passe. The author makes the point that language is a tool and we should expect tools to work in certain ways if they are to get their job done. That is the reason, rather than some deeply buried genetic grammar gene, that languages have similar features. As a dabbler in this area, I hadn't realized that Chomsky was passe (or maybe going passe.)

Shariatmadari also made some interesting points about language density. People can comprehend only so much, so denser languages are slower, and faster languages are less dense.

Shariatmadari's writing was accessible. I enjoyed his presentation and the material in this book.

[John Mannion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering how important language is, an awful lot of nonsense gets talked about it.

This book sets out to dispel several popular myths about language and to alert users to the advances that things like tape-recorders, enormous language databases and MRI scanners have made to our understanding of how language works in the real world.

Although it takes popular ideas as its starting point it does not avoid delving into the depths of linguistic controversy with some sharp analysis of topics like the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and Chomsky's Universal Grammar. These discussions, though rigorous, never get too technical and in general the book is a fast, enjoyable read.

If linguistic misconceptions are the sort of things up with which you will not put, this a great book.

[Owlseyes]

https://lithub.com/why-we-love-untran...

(Just a brief note: GOYA was in the name of the Spanish painter Francisco José de Goya...,you go figure)

[Peter Tillman]

The NY Times reviewer liked it: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/bo...
Excerpt:
"It’s a brisk and friendly introduction to linguistics, and a synthesis of the field’s recent discoveries. So much more is now known about how language evolves, how animals communicate and how children learn to speak. Such findings remain mostly immured in the academy, however. Our “insatiable appetite for linguistic debate,” Shariatmadari writes, is born out of confusion. “Why do millennials speak their own language? Do the words they choose reflect the fact that they are superficial, lazy, addicted to technology? How can you protect a language against outside influence? . . .

[H]uman communication is in constant flux and ought to be understood, this book argues, as “a snapshot” of a time, place and particular community of speakers. Even the simplest words alter with time. “Adder,” “apron” and “umpire,” for example, were originally “nadder,” “napron” and “numpire.” Bird used to be “brid,” and “horse,” “hros,” transpositions of letters that later became the norm. “Empty” used to be “emty” — a transformation that reveals physics at work, according to Shariatmadari. “The simple mechanics of moving from a nasal sound (‘m’ or ‘n’) to a non-nasal one can make a consonant pop up in between” — in this case, the “p” sound we hear.

[Rachel B · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

There is so much fascinating information here! I would definitely recommend it to the budding hobby linguist. I can't imagine there's anything new here for professionals.

A couple drawbacks:

Two chapters were very boring, and added virtually nothing to the book: the one on animals, and the last chapter. It was so boring, I can't even remember what it was about.

The author refereneces evolutionary theory as fact a few times.

Shariatmadari also uses the F-word as an example for some point, when something else could have been easily used instead (and been much less offensive).

He misinterprets a word in the Bible in a big way. "Word" with a capital W is always used to reference Jesus, and he acted as if it meant a literal word.

Definitely worth reading, still; and now I'm very curious to find similar books that are even better.

[Lauren D'Souza · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate to say it, but this book was frankly a bit boring and nothing really new. Shariatmadari lays out nine myths relating to language and linguistics and goes to great, verbose lengths to disprove them:

1. Language is going to the dogs
2. A word's origin is its true meaning
3. I control what comes out of my mouth
4. We can't talk to animals
5. You can't translate this word
6. Italian is a language
7. What you say is what you mean
8. Some languages are better than others
9. Language is an instinct.

I found two of these chapters interesting - the one on the Internet's favorite "untranslatable" words in other languages and the one arguing that Italian is not a language, but rather comprised of several dialects and is itself a dialect of other languages in the area. I found these to be something like fun(-ish) dinner party conversation, although you run the risk of being that annoying person in the room dead set on proving everyone wrong. The other chapters were nothing very interesting or new to me, and I'm a person who rather likes learning about linguistics and the history of language. I don't even find most of these to be commonly-held beliefs about language that I've encountered; I wouldn't really put up a fight to around half of his "myths."

Many of these chapters were also far too long to enjoy - the book is about 330 pages, but could have easily been cut down by 30-50% if you removed all of the somewhat random stories and repetitive points. Overall, for a more interesting release on linguistics this year, I'd recommend Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language.

Thank you to W.W. Norton for the ARC via Netgalley.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shariatmadari, David. Don’t Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth about Language. Norton, 2020.
Guardian editor David Shariatmadari says that his interest in language was sparked in childhood by listening to his Iranian farther speaking on the phone in Farsi to relatives in Tehran. He did not understand what was being said, but he could detect some of the language’s repeated phrases. That interest led him to study linguistics, the scientific study of language on its most general level. In Don’t Believe a Word he offers a refreshingly almost jargon-free introduction to the field. He debunks a number of commonly held beliefs about language, such as that some languages are innately superior to others, that the “true” meaning of a word is found in its etymology, and that there is a clear distinction between dialect and language. Along the way, he offers some interesting perspectives on why it is so difficult to program computers to pass the Turing test and, a bit more arcanely, on the evolution of Noam Chomsky’s ideas about language development and what features of human language are difficult for animals. I do wish he paid just a little attention to philology, the general study of written language. Don’t Believe a Word is as gentle an introduction to linguistics as you will ever find.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

A harsh two stars, because he does a disservice to his interesting material (language).
Two main flaws.
First, he's not materially reliable - I noticed basic several factual errors. The one that sticks in my mind is a reference to Freud having said something several years after he had in fact died (I tried to see if it could be excused as a reference to a republication date, but no - it's a mistake).
Second, he frames the whole presentation of themes in terms of a completely unscientific and intellectually cartoonish opposition between what amount (in his presentation, not in reality) to left versus right positions on themes such as language change, how to think about linguistic meaning, translatability, etc. His conclusion in every case is that the straw man he constructs as the right view is wrong, the left right. You can see this trait on show in his occasional, predictable and foolish, articles in the Guardian, which is where I first encountered him; I ordered this book to see if he had anything better to offer when given his head. He doesn't, apparently.

[Natalia K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, the book is interesting to read but it can get a bit too boring and technical if you are not familiar with linguistics. I definitely had some moments of enlightenment as I am a native speaker of Russian and in the process of learning Turkish. Although I did study linguistics and read some of the authors mentioned in the book, like Chomsky and Pinker, it is different when you are actually in the process of learning a language or live in the state of constant code switching. This book was also in line with recurring speculations of the fact that language can bring stigma or prestige to its speakers.

[Erin Stogdill · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I’ve found that—however much you study it—language is a subject that will never exhaust your capacity for wonder.” The language nerd in me ADORED this book, and the rest of me did too. Super interesting look into the misconceptions of language and linguistics.

[John Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this quite a bit. The author explores a variety of linguistic concepts in a "myth-busters" style and thus provides a great introduction to the field. Stylistically, the text could have done a better job of communicating the excitement about how language works.

[Pascal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting!

[Ellison · Rating 2 out of 5]

95% anecdote (sometimes amusing or informative but mostly not) and 5% concept. I can sometimes remember concepts but anecdotes are like fruit flies in my mind.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read for all the word nerds.

[Diana Lupu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great, engaging introduction to linguistics.

[Madame Histoire · Rating 3 out of 5]

it's an interesting and informative book, although I found myself struggling to keep at it till the end without forcing myself to.

I liked his demonstration of how the idea that the standards of English are declining is a myth (each generation sticking to the language they have been brought up with, as the language never ceases to progress) but beyond that, having finished the books a couple weeks ago, I struggle to remember any major points argued by the author. Partly because it's quite a dense book to follow as an audio (aka mostly while doing something else)...

[Sonali Dabade]

DNF.

This isn't a book that should be listened to on its own. Thanks (or no thanks) to the number of pronunciations that the author doles out, it would be better if you could read the physical copy as you listen to the audiobook. That way, you can see the word while you listen to the author explain it, and I feel like that's important for a book like this.

If, in the future, I were to get my hands on a paperback of this book, I'm definitely going to give it another try!

[Patricia Čmelová · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some chapters were a bit too heavy to read, but at the end, it was really interesting reading.

[Madeline · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing. by arguing against common myths, he failed to say anything interesting well or make any original arguments worth reading. I skimmed most of it. The glossary was the most interesting part.

[Blyden · Rating 3 out of 5]

(This is 25% review of and 75% debate with Don't Believe A Word)

This book is subtitled “The surprising truth about language”. I learned quite a bit new, and enjoyed reading it, but I found very little surprising here.

Chapters are organized around sets of related topics, but it is unclear to me what principles order the chapters. I might have started with the beginning of Chapter 7, but broken off from the rest of that chapter. Here’s a quick summary of content:

Introduction. Breezy style. Interesting.

1. Language is going to the dogs. Language is always changing, but it survives.
People (usually older people) have complained about decline of language for centuries.

2. A word’s origin is its true meaning. Wittgenstein’s declaration that “The meaning of a word is its use in the language”. Explodes the idea that etymology reveals true meanings of a word.

3. I control what comes out of my mouth. Differences in pronunciation, class markers, how we subconsciously modify our language use.

4. We can’t talk to the animals. Human language capacity is far above that of other animals. Physical, cognitive, and social factors underlying language capacity.

5. You can’t translate this word. Strong Sapir-Whorf is wrong, but evidence for weak Sapir-Whorf: Color hues. Accident rates Swedes vs. Finns. (p.145). Gendered assumptions (p.147)

6. Italian is a language. Language as gradation. Language, dialect, idiolect, with some reference to politics (army/navy), status, etc. Section on AAVE (e.g. ebonics).

7. What you say is what you mean. Semantics vs. syntax. AI & Turing test. Pragmatics: “maxims” (quantity, quality, relation, manner) and being “polite”.

8. Some languages are better than others. Ethnocentrism, without the word “ethnocentrism”. Differences: fusional, agglutinative, and isolating languages and density of information. Pidgin & Creole languages. Evolution from simple to complex language.

9. Language is an instinct. How much is language nature vs. how much is it nurture?

Overall the book is written in a very easy and accessible way, intended to provide a survey of linguistic topics and curiosities to a broad and popular audience. For the most part that is ideal, though I feel there are times when it gets a bit sloppy. I recommend it to anyone with a general interest in linguistic topics.

That summary complete, the rest of my review her concerns issues on which I take exception from the views of the author, mostly on the issue of semantics.

In Chapter 1, SD argues the idea that language is “going to the dogs” is just resistance to change. Languages evolve over time, but change is not decline: language survives. That is fine as far as it goes, but it frames the issue only at the aggregate level. Why? Perhaps to produce a strawman argument that can easily be dismissed. When people talk about language decline, how often, if ever, are they really talking about language in the aggregate? The fight seems, almost always, to be about the use (i.e. meanings, semantics) of specific sets of words, and usually about preserving useful and/or logical semantic relationships among concepts.

Beyond admitting that sometimes value is lost in this or that particular word, DS breezes over this in Panglossian fashion, as if any language is more or less of equal value or merit, regardless of its semantic hygiene. Do trees not matter so long as forest remains? Do laws or policies not matter so long as there is government? Do other cultural practices not matter so long as there is a culture? There is always culture, so isn’t that a bit like saying any weather is fine?

A second concern of mine, which may initially appear unrelated, concerns etymology, the focus of Chapter 2. Etymology rarely reveals true or original word meanings, DS states, because:
(1) the origins of most words are so deep in history that finding them is impossible;
(2) all etymologies are simplifications, and some popular ones are simply false;
(3) language changes; meanings from centuries past are meanings from centuries past; current meanings are in how a word is used now.

With the caveat on #1 that sometimes an original meaning can be tracked down for a coined word or technical term, these points are valid as far as they go, but then things get a bit sloppy. With subtle semantic sleight of hand, DS slips from “true” and “original” to “underlying” meaning. Contrary to SD’s assertion, etymology CAN often show underlying meanings, because historic use often has remnant traces and nuances in current usage, or nuances in the trajectories of a word’s meanings through time. Whatever part of the past we continue to recognize, such as the history of a word’s meaning, is never entirely dead. That bit of it that we recognize continues to exist in the present. Knowing the past tradition enriches understanding of what is implied or assumed in a word, and the images and associations it may evoke, the part of its past meaning that is still within its present meaning. DS admits as much at the end of Chapter 2, that etymology is as an “inquiry into the history of the ideas, habits, and practices of society”. What are ideas, habits, and practices of society, if not the uses of objects and concepts which constitute the meanings of words?

These two issues stand on a third: theory of semantics, which is my main beef with this book. It offers two theories of semantics (p.52-55, and 193). The first, identified with St. Augustine, holds words stand for things. SD argues against that view. The second, identified with Wittgenstein, is that meaning is in how words are used. I agree with SD and Wittgenstein that meaning is in how words are used, but that still leaves a lot of room for disagreement. “How words are used” can be interpreted broadly or narrowly. SD does not specify the relationship between words, concepts, and meaning.

“The meaning of a word is its use in the language…”, SD says (p.54), but also “Words have meanings...” (p.41, start of Chapter 2). Is there a 1-to1 or 1-to-N relationship between words and meanings?

Where is meaning located? The “of” and “have” in these statements suggest meanings are properties of words. Later SD writes “language is a system of relationships” (p.149) which might suggest that meaning is a property of relationships between words, except the “relationship” he has in mind is that “territory covered by one word is a function of the territory covered by its neighbor” (p.149), implying the “relation” consist only of being bounded the meanings of other, conceptually adjacent words, leaving us back at the idea of meanings being properties of words.
SD notes “people can think without words” (p.151). The units of thought/cognition are concepts, i.e. cognitive objects: every thing a mind recognizes as a thing. Meanings are not in words but concepts, and not in (i.e. properties of) concepts, but between them. What meanings are is the relationships among concepts, in the minds of any particular knower.

If we use the metaphor of a net or network for semantics, as SD does in talking about “under the net”, the semantic networks is not one of words but of concepts, and the meanings are in the threads of the net, not in the nodes/concepts. To communicate meaning is necessarily to relate one concept to others.

Words come in as symbols for concepts. They are the labels/names we use for our concepts and the primary (and usually most efficient) means to communicate concepts. Word have a degree of fluidity, not just over time as language evolves, but in any particular setting or usage, negotiated (also reconstructed and reinforced) in every interaction.

Meanings are expressed by words according to the relationships among concepts that those words and their particular grammar (and the rules of syntax) represent. This is why grammar and syntax are crucial for meaning.

Meanings are ultimately in the cognitions, especially memories of experience, of each person. Meanings can be abstracted, generalized across sets of people, e.g. a national culture, a social class, an organization, a clique, but the existence of knowers is always implicit. There is no meaning independent of some set of meaning knowers and users.

This also means that meanings are rarely, if ever, finitely bounded or limited to how they are actually used. All words are at least potentially poetic, carrying within them evocative powers of nuance and connotation of potential uses, that draw on whatever subtle cognitive threads to experiential images and memories. Consider, for example, part of the indirect meaning of “ginger” can be love, something you would never find in a dictionary and rarely find, at least not directly, in real world examples of how the word ginger is used.

There are hints in this book that support this view, though SD never delves there. In particular the discussion of linguistic primes (end of Chapter 5, p.153-161) suggests a set of concepts universal to all known languages.

It follows that a change in the meaning of a word, for any set of persons, is a change in their recognition of how the concept that word represents relates to other concepts, which brings us back to complaints about the meanings of words “declining”. Where such changes in cognition undermine the significant values of some set of knowers, those knowers are likely to question, challenge, resist, or even actively fight against the new semantic relationship or allowing an old one to slip away. This is generally what is going on wherever we see debate about misused words or changes in a word’s meaning.

Of special note are situations were changes in meanings invert or eliminate a logic inherent in the relationship between concepts. There are myriad examples. Change in the meaning of “capital” has rendered a well-known Lincoln quote, "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital”, from having been true when “Honest Abe” said it, to now being partly false. Historically, and by their shared root, “terrific” should relate to “terrible”, and “awesome” to “awful”, but they do not. Political words like “liberal” and “communism” have taken on meanings that contradict earlier meanings of the same words. We no longer have a word for what “communism” meant prior to the 20th century, and a misleading “liberal-conservative” spectrum that leaves out a lot of people who are neither and includes a lot of people who are both. Our ability to understand these phenomena is impaired as a result.

Another excellent example is the word “antisemitism”, all the better because its origin is known. It was coined by Moritz Steinschneider, who used it explicit to refer to hostility toward Semites as a race, as distinct from religion. “Antisemitism” should be logically tied to the words Semite and Semitic, but over the past century and a half the meaning has been corrupted. “Antisemitism” now means “Anti-Jewish”, i.e. hostility based on religion, rather than race, opposite its creator’s intent, and creating an irony of victims of “antisemitism” not being Semitic and Semites being (or at least accused of being) “anti-Semites”!

I also get mixed messages here about translation. At times SD seems to be saying that any word can be translated into other languages. At other times, particularly the section on “primes” and metalanguage, he seems to suggest that many words can be translated, but others cannot. Elsewhere he writes “We may ask whether completely accurate translation is every really possible” (p.148), and “Translators… efforts are likely to be imperfect, but they mostly work well enough for practical purposes” (p.185). I share the last view. You may be able to crudely translate anything. With a person whose “idiolect” or conceptual scheme is very similar to one’s own, translation may be almost perfect, but translation is probably always less than perfect and often crude, even when both people are native speakers of the same language, precisely because semantics are extended and delicate, consisting of connotations, nuances, memories.

In addition to these core critiques, I have several quibbles:
There occasional references to objectivity, e.g. “…no objective criteria by which to judge…” (p.36), “Words like ‘evidently’… are now rarely used in a non-subjective way…”, “…we tend to think we’re making objective statements” (p.217), “…is objectively better or worse.” (p.225). Similarly, “imagine a net… cast over a piece of earth….” (p.149) implies an objective ground underlying a semantic net. In all these case I think it should be obvious objectivity is non-existent, and need not be mentioned.

Another is where SD says that if language was threatened nations would take action, “but none of this is happening” (p.22). Isn’t Académie Française, regulating French language, an example?

“…no one has yet been able to name an example of a ‘decayed language’” (p.28, citing Kellar) English, maybe? Difficult for non-natives to learn because it is a bastard tongue, frequently breaks its own “rules”, and fraught with broken or irrationally flipped semantics. They say that though English is tough, it can be understood through thorough thought. ;-)

Meanings of words, SD says “are not stored… in the heads of human beings or in dictionaries… but thrashed out between people in real time.” (p.103) Yes, they are thrashed out between people in real time, but that does not preclude that they are also stored in the heads of human beings and abstracted in dictionaries for reference.

“For a computer to grasp  all our knowledge of the world, of society, of analogy-making, of humor, irony, teasing, sadness and ambition, deception and kindness  they’d have to be a human…” [italics emphasis in original] If a human brain can do that, why would it be impossible for an AI? I expect in the future AI will be able to do this, but that alone will not make it able to perfectly impersonate a human.

“Americans… are likely to find Brits a little blunter than they are used to and… ‘rude’.” (p.210)
Brits seems significantly more polite, and tactful, on average than my fellow Americans.
“Evidence that animals lack theory of mind”. If you watch birds, you will notice that many birds, will change their behavior, often simply flying away, if they see you are watching them. Does that perhaps suggest these birds have a “theory of mind”?

Regarding the maxims and politeness topics in Chapter 7, I see it these are simply social norms, that vary greatly applicability across cultures and subcultures, as SD recognizes (p.209+). I am not sure they really count as factors internal to language.

Pragmatics as “the relations of signs to interpreters”, as opposed to semantics, “the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable”. Signs have no relation to objects except in the cognitions of “interpreters”.

There are a few pages (p.225-231) on linguistic theories tied to “scientific racism”. I suppose they exist to be refuted, but was giving space to them really needed?

[Carter Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woah so interesting!! My enjoyment certainly varied by chapter (sociolinguistics and semantics will always trump syntax and grammar I’m afraid…) but overall a solid read! Linguistics will forever be fascinating to me and it’s so interdisciplinary that it really applies to anything! Super cool.

[Aharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting, but I can't helping thinking he should have stuck with his original title, "Talking Shit About Linguists."