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Welcome to the third review post of Book Week 2019. In the intro to Book Week 2019 , I explain what I'm doing this week. In the end, there will be four posts. I thought there would be five, but one of the books has (orig. BrE) gone missing . Having had a day off yesterday, I will also have a day off tomorrow, so the final review will appear during the weekend. Probably. Anyhow, today's book is: Don't believe a word the surprising truth about language by David Shariatmadari Norton, 2019 (N America) W&N, 2019 (UK/RoW) David Shariatmadari writes for the Guardian , often about language, and is one of the sensible journalists on the topic. The number of sensible journalists writing about language has really shot up in the past decade, and judging from reading their books, this is in part because of increasingly clear, public-facing work by academic linguists. (Yay, academic linguists!) But in Shariatmadari's case, the journalist is a linguist: he has a BA and MA in the ...

Welcome to the second review post of Book Week 2019. See the intro to Book Week 2019 to understand more about what I'm doing this week. Next up we have: Language unlimited the science behind our most creative power by David Adger Oxford University Press, 2019 This is a book for people who like to think about HOW THINGS WORK. It's a serious work of popular science writing, which carefully spells out the mysteries of syntax. And by mysteries, I mean things you've probably never even noticed about language. But once they're pointed out, you have to sit back and say " Whoa ." Because even though you hadn't noticed these things, you know them. Remember a few years ago, when the internet was hopping with posts about how we subconsciously know which order to put adjectives in ? That's kid's play compared with the stuff that Adger'll teach you about the things you know but don't know about . Adger (who is Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary U...

Welcome to the first review post of Book Week 2019. See the intro to Book Week 2019 to understand more about what I'm doing this week. I'm starting with the most recent book in the ol' pile of books from publishers: Your voice speaks volumes it's not what you say, but how you say it by Jane Setter Oxford University Press, 2019 Jane is Professor of Phonetics at the University of Reading (UK) and a recipient of the prestigious National Teaching Fellowship. (As you can see, we are on a first-name basis, as we travel some of the same Public Linguist circles.) I mention the teaching fellowship because it is relevant: Jane is excellent at making linguistics, particularly phonetics, crystal clear for the uninitiated. She uses that talent to great effect in her first book for the general public.  This book speaks squarely to a general British audience — and to those who want to know more about English-language issues and attitudes in this country. I'm writing this on a day...

My new year's resolution for 2019 was: Finish the books I start.  Now, it must be said, I don't read enough books. I do a lot of reading for research, which does not usually involve reading books from cover to cover. (It involves reading journal articles, reading chapters, using the indices of books to find the bits I need.) Since so much of my working life is reading (including multiple books' worth of student writing each term), after work I tend to do other things. But I still want to be reading books, because there are so many good books out there and I have great respect for the writers of books and the books they write. I find it's very easy to start (reading) books. Rarely do I start reading a book and then lose interest in it. I have every intention and desire to finish most books that I start. But then some other book comes along and I just want to start that one too. (It must be said here that these days I mostly read non-fiction—and it's relatively easy t...