Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever

Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever by John McWhorter

What makes a word profane? It is not easy. Often a word will have fairly innocent origins, then gradually morph into an "unspeakable". The mores of the time strongly influence what is considered a "nasty" word. Deity, reproduction and excrement have been sources of profanity. Today, identity has become the primary taboo, with racial, ethnic and sexual orientation slurs being most "extreme". Words will often start innocent, and then morph through associated meanings and sound changes. Then the "obscenity" will change. The times will also influence the words. Euphemisms will then appear for the obscene words. These will continue to evolve. Innocent words of today may have come from this evolution, while the most extreme words today may have been innocent in the past.

Word Workout: Building a Muscular Vocabulary in 10 Easy Steps

Word Workout: Building a Muscular Vocabulary in 10 Easy Steps by Charles Harrington Elster

This book is built as a study guide to help you learn new vocabulary. You could use it that way. However, I found it worked great reading straight through. It presented a variety of words in context with proper pronunciation and a look at their history. Some of these are fairly common words. Others are rarities. The author is strongly opinionated as to the elimination of "redundancy" in speech. While it may be fine if everyone is "in" on the rare word, redundancy does help when you want to drop a rare word and still let those not in the know understand. Being concise can sometimes be the enemy of being understood.

Uncharted: Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture

Uncharted: Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture by Jean-Baptiste Michel and Erez Aiden

The Google book-scanning project gives us easy access to a great library of books and can help us understand the evolution of language. The authors were able to analyze how words changed and when they changed. Many irregular verbs have slowly gone out of style. The least used ones are the first to regularize, while the more common ones are slower to change. We can also see how words like babysitter gradually evolve.

The describe their findings as well as the work they have gone through to be able to do the research. There are plenty of great nuggets in the book. However, the writing, while personable comes up lacking.

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English

English is the ugly stepchild of the Germanic languages. It has adopted various grammatical features, pronunciation and vocabulary from other neighbors. Meanwhile, the Germanic languages have plenty of unique features that separate it from other Indo-European languages. What are some of these features and why did they come about?

Language evolves more quickly when different people intermingle without writing things down. English has various periods of limited literacy and connections with others. This contributed to many changes. Alas, these factors also make it difficult to trace the changes. Making it even more difficult, writing tends to be more conservative than spoken language. Thus, we may still see things written one way even after the language has moved on. 

Widespread writing and communications give us better records of language change. However, they also tend to significantly slow the rate of change. 

English has had a lot of interaction and influence from other languages. The author brings about the possible interaction of the Phoenicians with early Germanic speakers leading to some of the language changes. The Celts, Vikings, and Norse all played a role in influencing the language. There have been changes in both grammar and vocabulary that appear to be influenced by others.

The author is less convinced of the influence of language on thoughts and actions. There are some small cases where culture seem to match language. However, it is difficult to determine whether this was culture influencing language or the other way around.

The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

The pool in "Gene Pool", "Pooling resource" and similar usages is not related to a "Swimming pool" at all, but instead comes from the French word for chicken. Etymologicon has an exploitative, stream of conscious style that works perfectly for the subject matter. The author takes some words and gradually moves through their evolution, and in the process runs into some other interesting words. These are explored and then related to something else. Each individual group of words is an interesting read on its own. The masterwork, however, is being able to relate them all together. He also takes time to delve into some linguistic influenced history. (The Anglo-Saxon takeover of the Celt lands seemed to be an all-out attack - or peaceful coexistence. Indo-Europeans spread out in many directions with their language.) The history leaves some interesting names that sometimes are merely multiple versions of the same word in different languages. (Some placenames would be translated "Hill Hill Hill".) Neverland comes from Peter Pan by way of a part of Australia where the blacks and whites never had contact. The Starbucks name came from Moby Dick. Melville adopted a common name that came about from the Viking invasion before undergoing a number of spelling changes. Some words have changed their meaning over time. Gymnastics comes from the Greek meaning "to exercise naked" It has evolved into a specific type of athletic activity that is now done with clothes on.
There are many other great etymologies in this well written book. I would love for the author to write further follow ups.

Building Great Sentences

Brooks Landon appears to be a talented writer. Unfortunately, he is not a great lecturer. He sounds as if he is reading a lecture test verbatim - thus it becomes difficult to tell when he is lecturing originally or simply quoting another source. Take away the delivery problems and you are left with a long, but good lecture.

In Building Great Sentences, Brooks Landon focuses on the importance of "length". He even quotes from a multipage essay that consists of a single sentence. Cumulative syntax is one of his favorites. (And we hear him mention this over and over again.) He also stresses the importance of independent style. The author's feelings should come through in the writing. There is no way to prescribe the perfect writing style (though it is often easy to identify "bad" writing. There are many good points in here, though it may have been improved by cutting its length in half.

The History of the English Language

These lectures spend a long time covering the origins and evolution of the English language. The emphasis is on the various dialects and languages that "compete" to become standard English usage.  The attention paid to "pre-English" history is well done, and makes this one of the better histories of the language. There is also interesting discussion on some of the various dialects of English and how they grew in to being. There is, surprisingly, very little coverage of the British empire and English as a global language. However, this is somewhat of a relief, since it allows the focus to be on the language itself.

The Life of Language

This book attempts to provide a layman's guide to the evolution of words. It seems to be fairly well written, with concise chapters. There are also plenty of examples. Alas, I'd recently read a number of similar (and slightly more academic) works, so it seemed very repetitive. After a skimming a few chapters, I didn't seem to get much out of it, so it got put down.

Crazy English

Crazy English could make a good "bathroom book". There is almost no narrative in the book, and each short chapter stands on its own.

Many of the chapters are lists of items, or pretentious attempts at stuffing every single instance of some oddity in to a "story". There is a dialog where a person responds entirely in palindromes, and another where somebody makes all plurals "irregular". Some of these chapters can be extremely tedious, while others are worth reading. This makes it a good candidate for a quick skim.

Way With Words I: Writing, Rhetoric, and the Art of Persuasion

Way With Words


This is an introduction to rhetoric, with balanced coverage of both spoken and written communication. It starts with a brief history of rhetoric, then goes on to the "big picture" areas of organization. (It even advocated the structure of the "5 paragraph essay".) It then goes in to some details, covering logic, some tropes and scheme, and some examples of good and bad speeches.

The section on logic was easy to understand, and provided a great basis for identifying logical fallacies in arguments. The grammar section provided a balanced view of grammar rules which boiled down to "know your audience". It doesn't matter whether or not some "authority" views something as appropriate, what matters is that it will be seen as appropriate by the audience.

There was also a quick introduction to various rhetorical devices, including when to use them and when to avoid them. It left me eager to further explore the details of rhetoric.

Word Myths

Word Myths attempts to "debunk" various word origin urban legends. It does a fairly good job of doing so. (However, its approach seems to be primarily based on looking up the earliest origin in the Oxford English dictionary.) Some of the origins "Debunked" seem to be obvious bits of humour (such as a "life in the Shakespeare's day" story that managed to give the "false" origins of all sorts of cliche's.)

Unfortunately, the book tends to be extra verbose and "chatty". And some of the "debunkings" aren't worth the effort. It is actually more interesting to see the origin of the "false etymology" than the true etymology.

Words Words Words

David Crystal shows that he is an expert in the English language. He has knowledge of the intricate details of words, while also knowing his audience well. He describes the intricacies of English words in clear understandable language.

It contains sections describing where words come from, how they change, and how they fall away in usage. (And in some cases, seemingly come back from the grave.) English is a melting pot of many different languages, with an Anglo-Saxon base. However, even some common words come from languages outside this base. Some of the oddities of the language can be traced back to attempts to formalize rules, or make things easier. (For example, "love" is spelled with an "o" because it was difficult to distinguish between u and v.)

I found the etymological analysis to be especially intriguing. Words evolve over time, some broadening or narrowing their scope, others adopting a more positive of negative meaning. Some words like "bling" can pop out of nowhere, become wildly adopted, and in the process be shunned by their original rapper coiners. Others such as wireless seem to die (in favor of radio), only to roar back to life (as mobile phones and the like.) To truly understand words, you need to know what they mean at the given point in time.

English also has a great system for coining new words out of already-existing parts, or through commonization of proper nouns. As long as the audience understands the speaker, communication is working. Jargon is great when used among specialized audiences. However, when used among common folk it hinders understanding. Similarly many other usages can be appropriate in some cases, but not in other. (However, outside forces inflicting "political correct" language often just transfer the negative view to other seemlingly benign words.)

Words words words is a short book with many words in it (and a cover to inspire budding gymnasts.) It titles each chapter with a "word" word, and even goes on to cover scrabble, text messaging and the internet. It is well worth the effort. And if it really inspires you to seek out more, there are a multitude of sources to keep you going.

Fumble Rules

Fumblerules: A Lighthearted Guide to Grammar and Good Usage
In Fumble Rules, Safire tries to be "smart" by creating grammar rules that are described in the bad grammar that they purport to fight. Unfortunately, this approach backfires, often making the rules difficult to comprehend. When the rules are easy to comprehend, however, it also backfires, showing that the rule is not really critical to understanding.

Perhaps this can be taken with a grain of salt, as he acknowledges that these are primarily for formal writing, rather than more informal text. (But who really writes readable formal writing these days? It seems to be either legalese mumble jumble, or informal prose.) Even the rules themselves come with a myriad of exceptions. It looks like the strict grammarian is doomed in this democratic English language.

Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language

The authors take an "Oxford English Dictionary" look at explaining meanings of words and rooting out misconceptions. If someone has the audacity to insist that "data" should only be plural, just point them here to show that it has been acceptable as a singular for a long time. And that word that supposedly came from an an acronym or certain historical event? Well, it had been used long time before the event. Oops!

One prescient observation is that English is constantly changing, with new words being added, and acceptable usages changing. What is acceptable is determined by common usage. Many of the "quirks" of the language are caused by people successfully inflicting reforms of the language. (There seem to be a lot of first "latinizations" of words, leading to awkward spellings, as well as plenty of feaux-French pronunciations.) Some grammar "rules", like avoiding split infinitives and terminal prepositions are exposed as truly bogus attempts to Latinate a non-Latin language. American English is also shown to be in many cases more "conservative" than British English, adhering to structure that has since changed on the island.

It all makes for a great read, and amble evidence to through at an annoying editor or teacher that disrespects your attempts at innovative language.

Great Tales from English History

The great English king Richard, immortalized in a statue at Parliament, spoke French, not English. "Robin Hood" was originally a lowly bail dodger, who's name gradually came to mean any one who disappeared after committing a crime.
These and other tidbits are present in Robert Lacey's Great Tales from English History.
The book primarily covers the middle ages in England (with a bit of available "early" history. However, it is not a history book per se, but more of a story book. It has a rough chronology of interesting stories of English characters. Some of the stories concern events and characters that shaped history at the time. Others are stories that were less significant (or even never happened), but later become part of the social fabric through myth and exaggeration.
History is, after all, is made to be applicable for the time it is written. Minor events from hundreds of years prior, suddenly become historically important because they fit a modern need or sensibility. Thus, looking at the "mythological" history from a given time period can probably tell you as much (if not more) about the time than the actual "facts" can tell. This book does a fairly good job of presenting interesting stories from the perspective of "our time" as well as other times in the not so distant pass. Now I want to dig up even more Medieval history.

Data: Singular or Plural

The data indicates we have a problem. The data are bad.
What is it? Is data singular or plural?
Going strictly by the latin roots, data is the plural of datum.
However, roots only get you so far. After all, "peas" is supposed to be the singular. However, since peas just sounded like a plural, a singular "pea" was manufactured.
Similarly, to non-scientist types, "the data is bad" sounds better than "the data are bad."
To a scientist, however, data really are a collection of individual data points. A single "datum" could be identified and checked for accuracy.
For a lay-person, however, the individual datum is long since lost in a layer of abstraction. The "data" is now a collection of abstract information, similar to the atmosphere. Sure, the atmosphere is a collection of individual molecules; but, it is a noun referring to the collection, not to individual molecules. Similarly, in common usage "data" has become an abstract collective. Thus, "the data is" becomes a correct way of referring to the abstract collective. The "data are" will slowly find itself limited to the area of scientific jargon.