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The Mother Tongue
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
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Publisher's summary
With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson - the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent - brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience, and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't) to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.
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Think twice if you're expecting a Bryson book...
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Maddening! Does not work as an audiobook!
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A Little History of the World
- By: E. H. Gombrich
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.
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an enlightening book; very well read
- By A.B.Oxford on 06-03-06
By: E. H. Gombrich
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Words and Rules
- The Ingredients of Language
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in 2000, Words and Rules remains one of Pinker's most provocative and accessible books, illuminating the fascinating relationship between the brain, the mind, and how language makes us humans.
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Amazing how much irregular verbs can teach.
- By Tristan on 04-10-16
By: Steven Pinker
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Babel No More
- The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners
- By: Michael Erard
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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We all learn at least one language as children. But what does it take to learn six languages...or seventy? In Babel No More, Michael Erard, "a monolingual with benefits," sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like Italian cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages; Emil Krebs, a pugnacious German diplomat, who spoke sixty-eight languages; and Lomb Kat, a Hungarian who taught herself Russian by reading Russian romance novels.
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Heavy on anecdote, light on science
- By S. Yates on 07-15-16
By: Michael Erard
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How to Write Short
- Word Craft for Fast Times
- By: Roy Peter Clark
- Narrated by: Roy Peter Clark
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In How to Write Short , Roy Peter Clark turns his attention to the art of painting a thousand pictures with just a few words. Short forms of writing have always existed - from ship logs and telegrams to prayers and haikus. But in this ever-changing Internet age, short-form writing has become an essential skill. Clark covers how to write effective and powerful titles, headlines, essays, sales pitches, Tweets, letters, and even self-descriptions for online dating services.
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Ironically long
- By Amazon Customer on 03-14-16
By: Roy Peter Clark
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The Art of Language Invention
- From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words Behind World-Building
- By: David J. Peterson
- Narrated by: David J. Peterson
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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From master language creator David J. Peterson comes a creative guide to language construction for sci-fi and fantasy fans, writers, game creators, and language lovers. Peterson offers a captivating overview of language creation, covering its history from Tolkien's creations and Klingon to today's thriving global community of conlangers.
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Great resource, but not conducive to audiobook
- By Ashley T. on 04-18-16
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The Bonjour Effect
- The Secret Codes of French Conversation Revealed
- By: Julie Barlow, Jean-Benoit Nadeau
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow spent a decade traveling back and forth to Paris as well as living there. Yet one important lesson never seemed to sink in: how to communicate comfortably with the French, even when you speak their language. In The Bonjour Effect, Jean-Benoît and Julie chronicle the lessons they learned after they returned to France to live, for a year, with their twin daughters. They offer up all the lessons they learned and explain the most important aspect of all: the French don't communicate, they converse.
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Terrible French pronunciation
- By CA on 01-24-19
By: Julie Barlow, and others
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Born to Kvetch
- Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods
- By: Michael Wex
- Narrated by: Michael Wex
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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As the main spoken language of the Jews for more than a thousand years, Yiddish has had plenty to lament, plenty to conceal. Its phrases and expressions paint a comprehensive picture of the mind-set that enabled the Jews of Europe to survive persecution: they never stopped kvetching about God, gentiles, children, and everything else.
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Fascinating, but...
- By Christopher B. on 04-05-16
By: Michael Wex
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Draft No. 4
- On the Writing Process
- By: John McPhee
- Narrated by: John McPhee
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Draft No. 4 is an elucidation of the writer's craft by a master practitioner. In a series of playful but expertly wrought essays, John McPhee shares insights he's gathered over his career and refined during his long-running course at Princeton University, where he has launched some of the most esteemed writers of several generations. McPhee offers a definitive guide to the crucial decisions regarding structure, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces and presents extracts from some of his best-loved work, subjecting them to wry scrutiny.
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McPhee is the Craft
- By Darwin8u on 09-19-17
By: John McPhee
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Printer's Error
- Irreverent Stories from Book History
- By: Rebecca Romney, J. P. Romney
- Narrated by: J.P. Romney
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the Gutenberg Bible first went on sale in 1455, printing has been viewed as one of the highest achievements of human innovation. But the march of progress hasn't been smooth; downright bizarre is more like it. Printer's Error chronicles some of the strangest and most humorous episodes in the history of Western printing. Take, for example, the Gutenberg Bible. While the book is regarded as the first printed work in the Western world, Gutenberg's name doesn't appear anywhere on it.
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Porn for Ye Old Bibliophiles
- By George M. Liveakos on 03-24-17
By: Rebecca Romney, and others
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Bryson Not Reading Makes For a Rare Fail
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Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.”
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Bryson does it again
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Bill Bryson is the world's funniest travel writer, and a master of comic observation. His hugely popular books, spanning topics from linguistics to Shakespeare to the human body, have sold over 16 million copies and been translated into 30 languages, and his 2003 science book A Short History of Nearly Everything won the prestigious Aventis and Descartes prizes.
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Another great Bryson
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One of the most admired nonfiction writers of our time retells the story of one truly fabulous year in the life of his native country - a fascinating and gripping narrative featuring such outsized American heroes as Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and yes Herbert Hoover, and a gallery of criminals (Al Capone), eccentrics (Shipwreck Kelly), and close-mouthed politicians (Calvin Coolidge). It was the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized things and came of age in a big, brawling manner. What a country. What a summer. And what a writer to bring it all so vividly alive.
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Why 1927?
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Bill Bryson Collector's Edition
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Bryson's best with Google
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Bryson does it again
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Another great Bryson
- By Dirk P. on 05-08-23
By: Bill Bryson
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Bill Bryson is an unabashed Anglophile who, through a mistake of history, happened to be born and bred in Iowa. Righting that error, he spent 20 years in England before deciding to repatriate. This was partly to let his wife and children experience life in Bryson's homeland - and partly because he had read that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another. It was thus clear to him that his people needed him. But before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain.
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Crackin' yarn, lad!
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The New York Times best-selling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement - precision - in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.
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Somewhat less than perfect
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This celebration of the English countryside does not only focus on the rolling green landscapes and magnificent monuments that set England apart from the rest of the world. Many of the contributors bring their own special touch, presenting a refreshingly eclectic variety of personal icons, from pub signs to seaside piers, from cattle grids to canal boats, and from village cricket to nimbies.
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Think twice if you're expecting a Bryson book...
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The Lost Continent
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Hardly anyone ever leaves Des Moines, Iowa. But Bill Bryson did, and after 10 years in England he decided to go home, to a foreign country. In an ageing Chevrolet Chevette, he drove nearly 14,000 miles through 38 states to compile this hilarious and perceptive state-of-the-nation report on small-town America.
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Written by Bryson's evil twin
- By M. S. Cohen on 08-11-14
By: Bill Bryson
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When to Rob a Bank
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- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner, Steven D. Levitt, Erik Bergmann
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When Freakonomics was initially published, the authors started a blog - and they've kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books.
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this book is free on the blog and podcast.
- By S on 05-12-15
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
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Neither Here Nor There
- Travels in Europe
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
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You'll stop at Europe's most diverting and historic locales and view the Old World through Bryson's tourist eye view in this affectionate, blisteringly insightful, and riotously funny pilgrimage from the frozen wastes of Scandinavia to the chaotic tumult of Istanbul.
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reader beware
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By: Bill Bryson
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The Ends of the World
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Our world has ended five times: It has been broiled, frozen, poison gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth's past dead ends, and in the process offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the 21st century have analogs in these five extinctions.
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A Kid's Science Book FOR ADULTS!!
- By aaron on 06-15-17
By: Peter Brannen
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I'm a Stranger Here Myself
- Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
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- Unabridged
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After living in Britain for two decades, Bill Bryson recently moved back to the United States with his English wife and four children (he had read somewhere that nearly 3 million Americans believed they had been abducted by aliens - as he later put it, "It was clear my people needed me." They were greeted by a new and improved America that boasts microwave pancakes, twenty-four-hour dental-floss hotlines, and the staunch conviction that ice is not a luxury item.
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How strange! Not as recently written as described.
- By Lynn on 10-12-12
By: Bill Bryson
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Neither Here nor There
- By: Bill Bryson
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- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In Neither Here nor There Bill Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia.
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Authentic Bryson, but that might be the problem
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At the end of the fifteenth century, Burgundy was extinguished as an independent state. It had been a fabulously wealthy, turbulent region situated between France and Germany, with close links to the English kingdom. Torn apart by the dynastic struggles of early modern Europe, this extraordinary realm vanished from the map. But it became the cradle of what we now know as the Low Countries, modern Belgium and the Netherlands. This is the story of a thousand years, a must-listen narrative history of ambitious aristocrats, family dysfunction, treachery, savage battles, luxury, and madness.
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Extraordinary story, expertly told and skillfully narrated
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The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
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- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
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- Unabridged
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Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century, 1951, in the middle of the United States, Des Moines, Iowa, in the middle of the largest generation in American history, the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, his is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero.
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Fun, but not for squeamish
- By David on 11-30-06
By: Bill Bryson
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In a Sunburned Country
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. His previous excursion on the Appalachian Trail resulted in the best seller A Walk in the Woods. Now, we follow him "Down Under" to Australia with this delectably funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance that combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiosity. More from Bill Bryson.
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Laugh out loud funny
- By Larry on 06-09-03
By: Bill Bryson
What listeners say about The Mother Tongue
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ellen
- 01-10-16
entertaining but
The narrator is OK. Rather monotone, but OK.
This title was OK until about Chapter 5 when variant pronunciations were SPELLED out. List after list.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Catherine
- 10-24-18
Out of date, some tedious spelling
Some of the chapters have too much spelling of words to be pleasant to listen to. I prefer John McWhorter’s books on English. I had hoped for more charming stories of English vs. American usage, but there wasn’t enough, and I was already familiar with a lot of the points he made.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Bob
- 02-21-17
Just not a book to be listened to
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
I think that this would be a great book to read, if you are into the root and meaning of words in the English language, however, in listening to it, you don't get the time to pause and reflect on how you read/speak/hear the words. Also, there are countless times when a word will be spelled out (in English and other languages), and these examples cannot be fully digested audibly.
What does Stephen McLaughlin bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Obviously the reader, through research and practice, is able to pronounce difficult words in arcane and foreign languages that I would merely stumble through.
If this book were a movie would you go see it?
No. There's no plot.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Meredith Cohen
- 02-03-18
very interesting!
If you have any interest in language, you need to read this book. fascinating and informative, with a bit of humor too.
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- Rhaffeman
- 08-16-22
Beautiful analysis of this silly language
I loved this book. Bill Bryson is incredible. Narrator was great too.
Wish I could say more but gotta keep running.
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- Jonathan
- 11-23-16
Entertaining entry for beginners
I am not a linguist or student in the field so I can't comment on the accuracy of the information presented. However, Bryson does cite sources and I is up front about areas where there is on going debate or no clear answer. Narrator does a good job with what could be difficult material to convey without visuals.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Heather
- 01-04-16
Attain word enlightment, if you can listen quickly
What did you like best about The Mother Tongue? What did you like least?
This book will enlighten you to the oddities of many English word spellings and originations. After listening to it I enjoyed sharing the things I learned with my fiancé. The narrator did a great job of pronouncing Welsh, Gaelic, French and words from all sorts of languages that I would have had difficulty with if I was just reading it. However, a good deal of the book was the spelling out of words. For example...'knight' is spelled 'K' 'N' 'I' 'G' 'H' 'T'. It was EXTREMELY difficult to follow along when the narrator spelled out long, complex words. It was just something meant to be read and not to be listened to.
Would you recommend The Mother Tongue to your friends? Why or why not?
Yes I'd recommend the book but I would recommend it be read if possible, instead of being listened to.
Which character – as performed by Stephen McLaughlin – was your favorite?
There are no characters in the book.
Did The Mother Tongue inspire you to do anything?
If anything it might inspire you to learn more about etymology
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- dervish
- 07-04-18
Read only if you are very interested in the English language
It was an interesting book but it was very very detailed. If it were not for Bill Bryson being so funny I could not have made my way through it. The narrator did a good job but it would have been better if Bryson has narrated.
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- Suzanne
- 06-01-18
Well Delivered, but not suited for audio alone
There are some sections of this book (phonology) where it is amazing to have the words read aloud. Takes all the work out of IPA. However, there are some sections (especially orthography) that become hard to follow because the narrator must spell each word. The content is interesting until about the last two chapters. It lost me in the modern era, and is a bit outdated.
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- Enzo G.
- 07-26-17
Helped and hurt by being an audio book
I hope the narrator got a bonus on this one. It must have been difficult to read as it required a lot of odd pronunciations - which is something a reader would never get otherwise. However, at times it was difficult to listen to when he spelled out sometimes dozens of individual words letter by letter. The 30 seconds forward button was helpful when it got to be too tedious. Fans of Bryson will really recognize his work once you reach later chapters on Shakespeare, cursing, and word play. My favorite sections are when he puts staunch grammarians in their place by debunking long preached rules of sentence structure. Some contemporary examples and research are a little dated since it was published in 1990, but much of the history comes from the Middle Ages so it is timeless. Worth a credit.
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