Overview

If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd sound like an American. English accents are the sexiest. Americans have ruined the English language. Technology means everyone will have to speak the same English. Such claims about the English language are often repeated but rarely examined. Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English. By examining the causes and symptoms of American Verbal Inferiority Complex and its flipside, British Verbal Superiority Complex, Murphy unravels the prejudices, stereotypes, and insecurities that shape our attitudes to our own language. With great humo(u)r and new insights, Lynne Murphy looks at the social, political, and linguistic forces that have driven American and British English in different directions: how Americans got from centre to center, why British accents are growing away from American ones, and what different things we mean when we say estate, frown, or middle class. Is anyone winning this war of the words? Will Yanks and Brits ever really understand each other?

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9781977353351

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Reviews

Narrator Pam Ward's clipped, wry tone is an excellent match for author and linguist Lynne Murphy's sharp analysis of how and why British English and American English came to be such different languages. ---AudioFile

Author Information

Lynne Murphy is a 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. Pam Ward has performed in dinner theater, summer stock, and Off-Broadway, as well as in commercials, radio, and film. An experienced narrator, Pam has recorded many titles for the Library of Congress Talking Books program. She is the recipient of an AudioFile Earphones Award and the prestigious Alexander Scourby Award.

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