Ronan > Recent Status Updates

Again, I'm making a guess, but I'm getting close to the end and this book is so twisty I'm getting anxiety. The good kind, not the bad kind. Needless to say, this book has invested me.

Once again I've had to estimate the page numbers. Still, I'm getting wrapped up in this book. I only intended to read one chapter and YET, I have probably read about three at this rate. I'll be both sad and happy to have finished it.

I can only estimate the word count because of the use of numerals for the introductions and such. However, this book remains very entertaining. I'd be repeating myself if I were to update more regularly my thoughts.

I had no idea this book would be so funny but I'm living for it.

Don't be fooled - I read through the prefaces and introductions and that's about it. I'm on about page 6-7 at this point.

Though I find at least some of these things helpful, I did sigh in relief when I finally got out of the Teutonics chapter. It is so, so long.

I regret making this book the first one of the year but I do sometimes learn new things from it.

Enjoying that this has the energy of a speedrun but in the 1940s, and very interested to hear etymology / quirks of words of English from the Romance languages and how to pronounce certain letters... at least according to the author, which I'm going to trust for now.

it's getting interesting now where he's talking about editing / communicating via writing in the English language and what to avoid. That's quite useful. The rest of it seems to be a roast of the English language itself which I guess I'm here for, but the old-fashioned (and frankly sometimes bigoted) cadence sort of makes me distrust some of the evaluations he's made thus far. So it's more like a skim.

I know that an experience with a book is going to be not great because around the first third of it I start becoming just a little insane. I suppose because I'm not a man in 1943 and have the power of retrospect to say "what do you MEAN? No, that didn't happen!" That sort of thing.

Phrasing is unhinged but I wouldn't say wholly inaccurate? Needless to say it's a considerable contrast to older history books I've read with similar theming. Its more recent publishing date definitely shows in how it covers the subject matter.

I'm not kidding when I say that I'm eagerly anticipating not having to read this book anymore. No wonder people decide not to go into history if this is what they're reading. Even I'm bored.