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Review
"The book’s chief pleasure is a simple one: Instead of sending the language to school, it savors a great many words and phrases that are staples on one side of the pond and unfamiliar on the other...her essential argument is that the plurality of English, a result of the riotous drama of history, is something to extol." —Wall Street Journal“The Prodigal Tongue [is] a delightful and useful book, going beyond the mere variations in the two dialects to explain historical development of the language, the linguistic underpinnings, and the social dimension, all explained conversationally… Rather than fret over England’s imagined superiority and America’s imagined inferiority, or repine over divergent developments in English over the past couple of centuries, Lynne Murphy would have us understand how rich and sturdy English is, that we may come to understand and delight in the richness of our differences. Buy the book.” —The Baltimore Sun"Thoughtful, funny, and approachable... The book’s momentum comes from Murphy’s witty presentation, but its real power comes from its commitment to inquiry and its profound belief that 'communication involves a million little acts of faith.'" —Publishers Weekly"[Lynne Murphy] has a delightfully sardonic style... A passionate defense (or is it defence?) of the 'fantastically flexible medium' that is English." —Kirkus Reviews"[Murphy’s] delivery is sparkling, her approach mischievous, her material brightened by the unexpected…a potpourri of enchanting, counterintuitive surprises…The Prodigal Tongue is playful, funny, smart and often humbling… before the apocalypse, you could do worse than read Lynne Murphy’s delightful book." —Times Literary Supplement"How did we get our knickers in such a twist? The British sneer at 'creeping Americanisms' that are neither creeping nor American. Meanwhile, their cousins in the US have an inferiority complex about their English and lust after those plummy British accents. Enter Lynne Murphy, a linguist who has a foot in each culture and a unique understanding of the Great Divide. The Prodigal Tongue is great fun—impeccably researched and outright funny at the same time (it should be required reading for Prince Charles, the quintessential sneerer). Murphy is one smart cookie, or should I say biscuit?” —Patricia T. O'Conner, author of Woe Is I and, with Stewart Kellerman, Origins of the Specious“The war of words waged between Americans and Brits has been filled with dour pedantry on both sides—which is what makes Murphy's book such a welcome and refreshing revelation. Murphy playfully and expertly pokes at the linguistic chauvinism displayed on both sides of the Atlantic, slyly overturning false assumptions and explaining the linguistic ins and outs of each other's speech with candor and humor. She pulls back the curtain not just on our language, but our shared quirks, loves, and frustrations, and in the process, extols our linguistic differences as part of the rich history of English and the nations that speak it. With wit and expertise, The Prodigal Tongue calls all English speakers home to a language big enough for both fries and chips, bumbershoots and brollies.” —Kory Stamper, author of Word by Word"Forget the usual bumbershoots and lifts and lorries—Lynne Murphy's book on the difference between English in America and English in England is full of much more interesting things. Did you know that increasing numbers of Brits are saying 'haitch' instead of 'aitch' for the name of the letter H? Or that Americans are using the subjunctive ever MORE lately? Or that James Corden was advised when he started hosting the Late, Late Show that Americans find WILLY and SHAG cute but not HALF-CUT and KNACKERED? You'll be chuffed as nuts on every page." —John McWhorter, author of Words on the Move and Talking Back, Talking Black"No one knows how to navigate the transatlantic language divide better than Lynne Murphy. Moving beyond facile stereotypes about British and American English, she delves into subtle linguistic nuances with wit and aplomb. The Prodigal Tongue is a wonderful reading experience for anyone interested in understanding the true nature of these two distinct 'nationlects.'"—Ben Zimmer, language columnist for The Wall Street Journal
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About the Author
Lynne Murphy is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sussex. Born and raised in New York State, she studied Linguistics at the Universities of Massachusetts and Illinois, before starting her academic career in South Africa and Texas. Since 2000, she has lived in Brighton, England, where she has acquired an English husband, an English daughter, and an alter ego: Lynneguist, author of the award-winning blog Separated by a Common Language.
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Product details
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books (April 10, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0143131109
ISBN-13: 978-0143131106
Product Dimensions:
5.5 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.2 out of 5 stars
35 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#194,927 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
What a great book! It's about language now, but it's also a history of the English language as it has migrated from Great Britain to the United States and beyond. It's about how social class and mobility has impacted, and continues to impact, our ever-evolving language. It's also funny, highly readable and full of useful information (I feel like I said to myself "huh, I didn't know that" a few times per page.As an American who loves to visit Britain but does so far less than he'd like, I can identify with the inferiority complex that many Americans feel when practicing the mother tongue in the land of its birth. I sometimes have felt like I'm walking on thin ice just ordering a meal or asking directions. (There's a whole section here about how Brits would be shocked by a customer ordering in a cafe or restaurant without using the word "please"--meaning I fell thru the ice several times during my most recent visit.) This book explains where the inferiority complex comes from, and debunks it, as it debunks the British myth that "Americans are ruining English". And does so with brio and humor.I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's a great read and very informative.
I enjoyed this book very much. Having visited England a few times, I thought I understood most of the places our common tongue parts ways, but I learned a great deal. I didn't know there was another meaning to the word frown! It's very interesting to see how words have 'migrated' in meaning. Being from the Deep South (US), and having lived in NJ for several years, it is easy to see how there are still differences within American English, so it stands to reason that our different cultures in the US and Great Britain have allowed words to evolve in different ways. (My ancestry traces back to Scotland and Ireland via the Appalachians; it was fun to note that some of the ways I still use words today have evolved from that corner of GB.)
I buy more books because of podcasts (either "Travels with Rick Steves" or "A Way With Words," this one due to the latter). Most books about American English vs. British English are like dictionaries: "boot" is what Americans call the trunk of the car, explaining Cockney rhyming slang, etc. This book takes a different tack: what words are British that people think sound American? and vice versa? Is British English somehow more correct than American English (as so many British pundits declare)? Is one "better" than the other? And who has the accent? Is the Midwestern accent Americans use for newscasters so much worse than the "Received Pronunciation" that's de rigueur at the BBC? And what about those different spellings?This is a topic that's fascinated me as an Anglophile and a reader of older British books and magazines. The chapter about British English changing is particularly noted because I notice from the British magazines I read today that British spelling has changed, even from the 1970s and the 1980s when I saw my first "Radio Times" and read "Woman and Home." Brits no longer refer to the "wireless" or spell it "tyre" or "kerb." But is the evolution the fault of American movies "invading" the Great Britain, or just a natural progression of the language?I think you would really have to be a word nerd and Anglophile to get the most enjoyment out of this book. As you can expect, I did!
If you are buff of language and its usage, this is a very enjoyable book. Also great for anyone who has spent some time on both sides of the Pond and has become familiar with all the quirky differences in Brit and American English. I fit into both categories, so really enjoyed. I had a lot of impressions confirmed but I also learned a lot I did not previously know. My only real negatives, and they are minor, are that she does spend a fair amount of the book in a somewhat defensive crouch, defending American English against the tut-tutting of Brit purists and snobs; and, she can be somewhat circular (or elliptical?) in visiting and then re-visiting a topic. But her style and writing are fresh and clear and she comes to the subject from an impeccable background as a language specialist who is an American ex-pat in the UK.
As an American living in the UK there's a lot in here that I relate to about how judgmental, superior - and usually wrong! - Brits are about the English language. I am a long-time follower of Ms Murphy's blog and twitter feed so I knew some of the things she covers, but a lot was new or explored at greater depth. I highly recommend it for anyone who cares about language, especially British people who want to blame every "ugly sounding" phrase on Americans.
The book discusses the differences between American and British English. Some of the questions under discussions are not interesting (for example, are American and British English one language or two? There is no way to reasonably determine the right answer). But I enjoyed reading about the history of the development of these differences. Many linguists are nudnik (American English derived from Yiddish derived from Hebrew) and this author is no exception, but she is a funny and interesting nudnik.
Book offers unique insights to word usage, including many insights not found in other books. Will take a second read and maybe a third to digest all the information. Easy reading because of a good writing style. The only difficulty is figuring out the flow -- progression of ideas. Worth reading if you want to know why words are what they are or why they are spelled one way or another.
I am not going into a long review, but I was rather disappointed with the book. I am always interested in this subject as an American who lived in the UK for decades. I particularly liked Bill Bryson's book, The Mother Tongue. So, I looked forward to this. Maybe it was too scholarly for me, but the book simply failed to excite or entice me. I felt it meandered.
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