Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue
A little while ago I posted about getting to see Bill Bryson and hear him talk, and in the comments you'll find several people recommended
his book Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way. So on the strength of those recommendations that is the book I checked out of the library, and it was really interesting.
Bryson goes into the history of language in general, the strange and inexplicable similarities between disparate languages from the ancient world. He discuses English as a growth industry, where it enables speakers of other languages and where it creates problems. It is a fascinating book in every respect. And funny too! He was saying that translations are one of the biggest problems always, that the sentence:
Out of sight, out of mind being translated out of English, through another language and then back into English, ended up as:
blind insanity.
He points out that computers can just never completely grasp:
"that there is a difference between time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana."
(that one totally cracked me up!)
Actually one of the uses for Esperanto may be that it could be used as a facilitating language for translation, smoothing out difficulties of syntax or idiom. Nothing would ever replace a gifted translator, but too often the translator is not that capable, or has their own POV to promote.
He spends some time talking about dictionaries. "Samuel Johnson was congratulated by a woman for leaving indecent words out of his dictionary. To which he devastatingly replied: "So you've been looking for them, have you, Madam?" "
Well, duh! Luckily Bryson is not so judgmental and included an entire chapter on swear words.
I was amazed to learn that the word snafu, which I assumed just meant mix-up and was probably derived from words like snarl-up or snag, is in fact a word created by the military, short for: "situation normal - all fucked up", even fubb comes from "fucked up beyond belief". It is funny how English swear words end up being softened and made appropriate for every day use.
Of course all this is just to say that I do recommend this book to anyone interested in language, it is humorous (or humourous? depending upon which side of the pond you are on...) and full of interesting information. Actually this book, like many of Bryson's books, shows how little education has to do with anything. Bill Bryson barely graduated from High School, and didn't complete an entire year of college (which he only entered in the first place for the draft deferment), but that hasn't held him back from learning a lot about an amazing range of subjects!
his book Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way. So on the strength of those recommendations that is the book I checked out of the library, and it was really interesting.
Bryson goes into the history of language in general, the strange and inexplicable similarities between disparate languages from the ancient world. He discuses English as a growth industry, where it enables speakers of other languages and where it creates problems. It is a fascinating book in every respect. And funny too! He was saying that translations are one of the biggest problems always, that the sentence:
Out of sight, out of mind being translated out of English, through another language and then back into English, ended up as:
blind insanity.
He points out that computers can just never completely grasp:
"that there is a difference between time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana."
(that one totally cracked me up!)
Actually one of the uses for Esperanto may be that it could be used as a facilitating language for translation, smoothing out difficulties of syntax or idiom. Nothing would ever replace a gifted translator, but too often the translator is not that capable, or has their own POV to promote.
He spends some time talking about dictionaries. "Samuel Johnson was congratulated by a woman for leaving indecent words out of his dictionary. To which he devastatingly replied: "So you've been looking for them, have you, Madam?" "
Well, duh! Luckily Bryson is not so judgmental and included an entire chapter on swear words.
I was amazed to learn that the word snafu, which I assumed just meant mix-up and was probably derived from words like snarl-up or snag, is in fact a word created by the military, short for: "situation normal - all fucked up", even fubb comes from "fucked up beyond belief". It is funny how English swear words end up being softened and made appropriate for every day use.
Of course all this is just to say that I do recommend this book to anyone interested in language, it is humorous (or humourous? depending upon which side of the pond you are on...) and full of interesting information. Actually this book, like many of Bryson's books, shows how little education has to do with anything. Bill Bryson barely graduated from High School, and didn't complete an entire year of college (which he only entered in the first place for the draft deferment), but that hasn't held him back from learning a lot about an amazing range of subjects!