Overview

English is a glorious mess of a language, cobbled together from a wide variety of sources and syntaxes, and changing over time with popular usage. Many of the words and usages we embrace as standard and correct today were at first considered slang, impolite, or just plain wrong. Whether you consider yourself a stickler, a nitpicker, or a rule-breaker in the know, Bad English is sure to enlighten, enrage, and perhaps even inspire. Filled with historic and contemporary examples, the book chronicles the long and entertaining history of language mistakes, and features some of our most common words and phrases, including decimate, hopefully, enormity, that vs. which, enervate vs. energize, bemuse vs. amuse, literally vs. figuratively, ain't, irregardless, socialist, OMG, and stupider. Lively, funny, and surprising, this is a book that will settle arguments among word lovers--and it's sure to start a few, too.

Full Product Details

9798200035113

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Reviews

"On the playground of language, there is no more mischievous laddie than Ammon Shea.-- ""Roy Peter Clark, author of The Glamour of Grammar"""

Author Information

Ammon Shea is the author of Reading the OED, along with Depraved English, Insulting English, and The Phone Book. A dictionary collector, he has worked as a consulting editor of American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. He has also contributed to the On Language column in Sunday's New York Times and has reviewed language books for the New York Times Book Review. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Mike Chamberlain is an actor and voice-over performer in Los Angeles whose audiobook narration has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards. His voice credits range from radio commercials and television narration to animation and video game characters. Stage trained at Boston College, he has performed works from Shakespeare and the classics to contemporary drama and comedy.

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