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Do You Make These Mistakes in English?: The Story of Sherwin Cody's Famous Language School: The Story of Sherin Cody's Famous Language School
In the early 1900s, the language of America was becoming colloquial English-the language of the businessman, manager, and professional. Since college and high school education were far from universal, many people turned to correspondence education-that era's distance learning-to learn the art of speaking and writing. By the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of Americans were sending coupons from newspapers and magazines to order Sherwin Cody's 100% Self-correcting Course in the English Language, a patented mail-order course in English that was taken by over 150,000 people.
Cody's ubiquitous signature advertisement, which ran for over forty years, promised a scientifically-tested invention that improved speaking and writing in just 15 minutes a day. Cody's ad explained that people are judged by their English, and he offered self-improvement and self-confidence through the mail.
In this book, linguist Edwin Battistella tells the story of Sherwin Cody and his famous English course, situating both the man and the course in early twentieth century cultural history. The author shows how Cody became a businessman-a writer, grammatical entrepreneur, and mass-marketer whose ads proclaimed "Good Money in Good English" and asked "Is Good English Worth 25 Cents to You?" His course, perhaps the most widely-advertised English education program in history, provides a unique window onto popular views of language and culture and their connection to American notions of success and failure. But Battistella shows Sherwin Cody was also part of a larger shift in attitudes. Using Cody's course as a reference point, he also looks at the self-improvement ethic reflected in such courses and products as the Harvard Classics, The Book of Etiquette, the Book-of-the-Month Club, the U.S. School of Music, and the Charles Atlas and Dale Carnegie courses to illustrate how culture became popular and how self-reliance evolved into self-improvement.
Cody's ubiquitous signature advertisement, which ran for over forty years, promised a scientifically-tested invention that improved speaking and writing in just 15 minutes a day. Cody's ad explained that people are judged by their English, and he offered self-improvement and self-confidence through the mail.
In this book, linguist Edwin Battistella tells the story of Sherwin Cody and his famous English course, situating both the man and the course in early twentieth century cultural history. The author shows how Cody became a businessman-a writer, grammatical entrepreneur, and mass-marketer whose ads proclaimed "Good Money in Good English" and asked "Is Good English Worth 25 Cents to You?" His course, perhaps the most widely-advertised English education program in history, provides a unique window onto popular views of language and culture and their connection to American notions of success and failure. But Battistella shows Sherwin Cody was also part of a larger shift in attitudes. Using Cody's course as a reference point, he also looks at the self-improvement ethic reflected in such courses and products as the Harvard Classics, The Book of Etiquette, the Book-of-the-Month Club, the U.S. School of Music, and the Charles Atlas and Dale Carnegie courses to illustrate how culture became popular and how self-reliance evolved into self-improvement.
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224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 2008
2 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Edwin L. Battistella
10 books32 followersEdwin L. Battistella teaches linguistics and writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon. He is the author of six books and over fifty articles.
Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology (Oxford University Press, 2014 [in production]) analyzes the public apologies of presidents, politicians, entertainers, and businessmen, situating the apology within American popular culture and showing how language creates sincere or insincere apologies, why we choose to apologize or don’t, and how our efforts to say we are sorry succeed or fail.
A Year of New Words (Literary Ashland Press, 2013) is a short series of essays and a glossary reporting on my 2012 project of making up a word a day.
Bad Language: Are Some Words Better Than Others? (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Do You Make These Mistakes in English? The Story of Sherwin Cody’s Famous Language School (Oxford University Press, 2009) are about language attitudes. Bad Language was a cultural history of language attitudes—why we consider some uses and words better than others. It was named one of the Chicago Tribune’s “10 Best Books on Language” in 2005 and it was an Oregon Book Award finalist in 2006.
Do You Make These Mistakes in English? was a cultural history of the self-education movement focusing on the life of writer Sherwin Cody, an entrepreneur of English whose long-running correspondence course invited the upwardly mobile to spend just fifteen minutes a day improving their English. It made the Library Journal’s 2009 list of Best Sellers in Language.
Markedness: The Evaluative Superstructure of Language (SUNY Press, 1989) and The Logic of Markedness (Oxford University Press, 1996) are about linguistic theory, specifically the structuralist concept of asymmetry between opposites and its later development in generative grammar.
Battistella served as Dean of the School of Arts & Letters at Southern Oregon University from 2000-2006 and as interim Provost from 2007-2008. He is on the board of directors of Oregon Humanities, the state humanities council, and on the editorial board of The Oregon Encyclopedia, and the Executive Committee of the Linguistic Society of America. He has been interviewed on the BBC, NPR’s Jefferson Public Radio, for C-Span2’s Book TV and in the NEH magazine Humanities.
He also moderates the Literary Ashland blog and twitter feed.
Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology (Oxford University Press, 2014 [in production]) analyzes the public apologies of presidents, politicians, entertainers, and businessmen, situating the apology within American popular culture and showing how language creates sincere or insincere apologies, why we choose to apologize or don’t, and how our efforts to say we are sorry succeed or fail.
A Year of New Words (Literary Ashland Press, 2013) is a short series of essays and a glossary reporting on my 2012 project of making up a word a day.
Bad Language: Are Some Words Better Than Others? (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Do You Make These Mistakes in English? The Story of Sherwin Cody’s Famous Language School (Oxford University Press, 2009) are about language attitudes. Bad Language was a cultural history of language attitudes—why we consider some uses and words better than others. It was named one of the Chicago Tribune’s “10 Best Books on Language” in 2005 and it was an Oregon Book Award finalist in 2006.
Do You Make These Mistakes in English? was a cultural history of the self-education movement focusing on the life of writer Sherwin Cody, an entrepreneur of English whose long-running correspondence course invited the upwardly mobile to spend just fifteen minutes a day improving their English. It made the Library Journal’s 2009 list of Best Sellers in Language.
Markedness: The Evaluative Superstructure of Language (SUNY Press, 1989) and The Logic of Markedness (Oxford University Press, 1996) are about linguistic theory, specifically the structuralist concept of asymmetry between opposites and its later development in generative grammar.
Battistella served as Dean of the School of Arts & Letters at Southern Oregon University from 2000-2006 and as interim Provost from 2007-2008. He is on the board of directors of Oregon Humanities, the state humanities council, and on the editorial board of The Oregon Encyclopedia, and the Executive Committee of the Linguistic Society of America. He has been interviewed on the BBC, NPR’s Jefferson Public Radio, for C-Span2’s Book TV and in the NEH magazine Humanities.
He also moderates the Literary Ashland blog and twitter feed.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 11, 2012
5 June 2012
Do You Make these Mistakes in English?:
A Modern Model of Self-Improvement for the Average American
During the rise of American capitalism, a young Michigan orphan strove to achieve the American dream against all odds. Working his way through Amherst on “potatoes and mush,” the determined yet disgruntled student, Sherwin Cody, had his eye on the future. His early inventive inclination within the academic environment would later reveal itself to a greater extent: he was to become a businessman and a scholar, promoting class uplift through practical academics and etiquette. Edwin Battistella emphasizes not only Cody’s talents, but also his flaws. Explaining early attempts of Cody’s failure at fiction, Battistella highlights the writer’s advice for writing good business letters to wrap up Chapter 2. In an effort to modernize the teaching of English, Cody, along with other writers, established tenets of writing: “clarity, correctness, conciseness, and colloquial style” (24). Battistella branches these early business English advocates with grammarians of today, noting that the “C’s” of effective writing are still used today.
Showing Cody’s witty advertising schemes through drawing from the rise of the pharmaceutical industry ties the entrepreneur nicely into the social context of the time. Cody utilized the rhetorical style of playing on the average Joe’s inadequacy and desire for self-improvement. For example, one of the many advertisements shown throughout the book, Battistella illustrates how Cody’s ads appealed to first impressions and the democracy of goods. This particular ad features an older employer looking across his desk at his employee with the wording: “You’re a fine fellow and I like you, but…” In fine print, the ad informs the reader that what employers need are workers who utilize their free time through self-improvement; “if you have the ability, International Correspondence Schools will give you the training” (84). Cody challenges the working-class to take up his offer; what he advertises as simple grammar and style for the masses is essentially finishing school for the common people.
Transgressing stringent grammar rules, Cody’s self-improvement method allowed for split infinitives and prepositions at the end of sentences. Instead of nit picking, Cody focused on such things as vocabulary building; he emphasized the importance of avoiding pompous or obsolete language. Battistella notes that Cody warned his clientele to avoid words like “authoress,” showing a slight feminist strand in the inventor’s work.
In the latter half of the book, Battistella extends his study to the broader self-improvement American community. Beginning with a discussion of Cody’s role in the rise of compilations of the “best” literature, he accentuates the rise of book culture as part of the media market. Making not only the classics, but also “medium-brow” literature available to the public, volumes like “Nutshell” and the “Harvard Classics” succeeded. Developing one’s music skills, physical strength, and public speaking skills was also a part of the making of a modern and practical etiquette, and Battistella reveals the U.S. School of Music, body builder Charles Atlas, and Dale Carnegie’s public speaking books played a role in the evolving American economy. Thanks to changing women’s roles, World War I, and Prohibition, shunned Victorian conventions in favor of this more modern ideology.
Do You Make these Mistakes in English? cleverly weaves Cody’s methodology of teaching grammar, his ethics of proper and practical education, with his unique and highly successful marketing techniques. Placing both Cody’s academic and business system in the context of the greater, changing American society, Battistella’s research tells a piece of American history in a practical and accessible manner.
Do You Make these Mistakes in English?:
A Modern Model of Self-Improvement for the Average American
During the rise of American capitalism, a young Michigan orphan strove to achieve the American dream against all odds. Working his way through Amherst on “potatoes and mush,” the determined yet disgruntled student, Sherwin Cody, had his eye on the future. His early inventive inclination within the academic environment would later reveal itself to a greater extent: he was to become a businessman and a scholar, promoting class uplift through practical academics and etiquette. Edwin Battistella emphasizes not only Cody’s talents, but also his flaws. Explaining early attempts of Cody’s failure at fiction, Battistella highlights the writer’s advice for writing good business letters to wrap up Chapter 2. In an effort to modernize the teaching of English, Cody, along with other writers, established tenets of writing: “clarity, correctness, conciseness, and colloquial style” (24). Battistella branches these early business English advocates with grammarians of today, noting that the “C’s” of effective writing are still used today.
Showing Cody’s witty advertising schemes through drawing from the rise of the pharmaceutical industry ties the entrepreneur nicely into the social context of the time. Cody utilized the rhetorical style of playing on the average Joe’s inadequacy and desire for self-improvement. For example, one of the many advertisements shown throughout the book, Battistella illustrates how Cody’s ads appealed to first impressions and the democracy of goods. This particular ad features an older employer looking across his desk at his employee with the wording: “You’re a fine fellow and I like you, but…” In fine print, the ad informs the reader that what employers need are workers who utilize their free time through self-improvement; “if you have the ability, International Correspondence Schools will give you the training” (84). Cody challenges the working-class to take up his offer; what he advertises as simple grammar and style for the masses is essentially finishing school for the common people.
Transgressing stringent grammar rules, Cody’s self-improvement method allowed for split infinitives and prepositions at the end of sentences. Instead of nit picking, Cody focused on such things as vocabulary building; he emphasized the importance of avoiding pompous or obsolete language. Battistella notes that Cody warned his clientele to avoid words like “authoress,” showing a slight feminist strand in the inventor’s work.
In the latter half of the book, Battistella extends his study to the broader self-improvement American community. Beginning with a discussion of Cody’s role in the rise of compilations of the “best” literature, he accentuates the rise of book culture as part of the media market. Making not only the classics, but also “medium-brow” literature available to the public, volumes like “Nutshell” and the “Harvard Classics” succeeded. Developing one’s music skills, physical strength, and public speaking skills was also a part of the making of a modern and practical etiquette, and Battistella reveals the U.S. School of Music, body builder Charles Atlas, and Dale Carnegie’s public speaking books played a role in the evolving American economy. Thanks to changing women’s roles, World War I, and Prohibition, shunned Victorian conventions in favor of this more modern ideology.
Do You Make these Mistakes in English? cleverly weaves Cody’s methodology of teaching grammar, his ethics of proper and practical education, with his unique and highly successful marketing techniques. Placing both Cody’s academic and business system in the context of the greater, changing American society, Battistella’s research tells a piece of American history in a practical and accessible manner.
April 22, 2024
Remarkable investigation into Sherwin Cody's prodigious enterprise that capitalized on human frailties. Battistella covers economics, culture, sociology and education in this work, when Cody addressed a basic human need to improve one's lot - the American way to success.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews