Overview

Included in the TLS Books of the Year 2023 Written by an author brought up in working-class Liverpool in the 1960s and 1970s, Liverpool: A Memoir of Words is a work of creative non-fiction that combines the study of language in Liverpool with social history, the history of the English language and personal memoir. A beautifully written book, based on a lifetime’s academic research, it explores the relationship between language and memory, and demonstrates the ways in which words are enmeshed in history and history in words. Starting with ‘Ace’ and weaving its way alphabetically to ‘Z-Cars’, the work illustrates the deep relationship that has been forged in the past two hundred years or so between a form of language, a place and a social identity. The account is funny, sad, full of surprises and always illuminating. It tells the real history of ‘Scouse’, details the multicultural complexity of Liverpool English, examines the common use of ‘plazzymorphs’, and shows how Liverpudlian words exemplify standard processes of change and development. Neither a memoir, dictionary or history book, this work crosses different fields of knowledge in order to weave an engaging and fascinating story. It is a book that will educate and delight Liverpudlians, students of language and social historians alike.

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9781837644384

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Reviews

‘Liverpool is a city that treasures words. Here Tony Crowley joyfully opens the treasure chest and holds words up to the light of history, politics, memory and love. A gold mine of a book.’ Frank Cottrell-Boyce ‘Both dazzlingly erudite and refreshingly readable, Tony Crowley’s book, which is part memoir and part cultural history, brings Scouse to life, showing us with abundant humour and grace the many ways we use language and language uses us.’ Professor Deryn Rees-Jones, University of Liverpool ‘By means of a lexicon of keywords in Liverpudlian English, Tony Crowley is able to interweave personal, social and linguistic history, drawing upon native wit, etymological erudition and a remarkable recollection of childhood years. Shorn of condescension and prejudice, the Liverpool vernacular with which he grew up is analysed with an accentuated sense of time and place that historians can but admire. So much more than a personal memoir, here is a significant work on the social and cultural history of Liverpool, wondrous place.’ Professor John Belchem, University of Liverpool, author of Irish, Catholic and Scouse ‘As a poet from “over-the-water”, Liverpool: A Memoir of Words offers an enjoyable exploration of vernacular language. Recognising the nuanced differences, edges and boundaries between localities within a city and its wider region, Tony Crowley places emphasis on variation and change, on the many-voiced reality of Merseyside, creating a perspective on the region which is both highly specific and yet coursing with the flow of historical tides. Language shifts as does identity, and by hearing and noting these linguistic changes an account is offered of how Liverpool and the wider region reimagines itself in response to its legacy as a port city and as a coastal landscape, of being of the land and always of the water.’ Dr Eleanor Rees, Liverpool Hope University ‘Who has done the most for Liverpool – the Beatles, Ken Dodd, Wayne Rooney? In scholarship the answer has to be Tony Crowley… Touching, sceptical and massively well-informed, it’s an ace book, wackers.’ John Kerrigan, Times Literary Supplement

‘Liverpool is a city that treasures words. Here Tony Crowley joyfully opens the treasure chest and holds words up to the light of history, politics, memory and love. A gold mine of a book.’ Frank Cottrell-Boyce ‘Both dazzlingly erudite and refreshingly readable, Tony Crowley’s book, which is part memoir and part cultural history, brings Scouse to life, showing us with abundant humour and grace the many ways we use language and language uses us.’ Professor Deryn Rees-Jones, University of Liverpool ‘By means of a lexicon of keywords in Liverpudlian English, Tony Crowley is able to interweave personal, social and linguistic history, drawing upon native wit, etymological erudition and a remarkable recollection of childhood years. Shorn of condescension and prejudice, the Liverpool vernacular with which he grew up is analysed with an accentuated sense of time and place that historians can but admire. So much more than a personal memoir, here is a significant work on the social and cultural history of Liverpool, wondrous place.’ Professor John Belchem, University of Liverpool, author of Irish, Catholic and Scouse ‘As a poet from “over-the-water”, Liverpool: A Memoir of Words offers an enjoyable exploration of vernacular language. Recognising the nuanced differences, edges and boundaries between localities within a city and its wider region, Tony Crowley places emphasis on variation and change, on the many-voiced reality of Merseyside, creating a perspective on the region which is both highly specific and yet coursing with the flow of historical tides. Language shifts as does identity, and by hearing and noting these linguistic changes an account is offered of how Liverpool and the wider region reimagines itself in response to its legacy as a port city and as a coastal landscape, of being of the land and always of the water.’ Dr Eleanor Rees, Liverpool Hope University

Author Information

Tony Crowley is Professor of English at the University of Leeds. Born and bred in Liverpool, he has taught at Oxford, Southampton and Manchester universities. He was the Hartley Burr Alexander Chair of the Humanities at Scripps College, California (2005–13), and is a Fellow of the English Association. His previous books include The Liverpool English Dictionary (Liverpool University Press, 2017), Scouse: A Social and Cultural History (Liverpool University Press, 2012), Wars of Words: The Politics of Language in Ireland 1537–2005 (Oxford University Press, 2005) and The Politics of Language: The Standard Language Question in Cultural Debates (Palgrave, 2003).

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