10 June 2009
There are a lot of books about language out there, but it is rare to find one that combines both fun and rigorous scholarship. Usually, a book is either written for a general audience and lacks notes and bibliography, making it all but useless for anyone who is halfway serious about the subject. Or it is a dry, scholarly tome, of little interest to all but the most diehard language bugs. Patricia T. O’Conner’s and Stewart Kellerman’s Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language is one of those rare books that hits the sweet spot, combining a light-hearted and easy style with rigorous research and useful notes. Any language lover should put this one near the top of their must-read list.
In ten chapters, O’Conner and Kellerman run the gamut of language myths, debunking them with grace and solid arguments. The discuss the differences between British and American English, explaining for example why Brits tend to drop their Rs. The chapter on grammar myths explains why there is nothing wrong with a split infinitive or ending a sentence with a preposition. They take on words that have become bete noires, like ain’t and literally. Etymological myths are taken on, from the whole nine yards to cat o’ nine tails. Bad words, eponyms, and faux French pronunciations like niche get their due. Politically correct verbiage, like herstory, is dealt with, as are malapropisms, like in high dungeon.
The style is fun and the research is impeccable. Best of all, it’s got notes. Notes are essential for a book like this to be taken seriously. You can see why O’Conner and Kellerman make the claims that they do. And while it’s impossible to write a book like this and not make some kind of factual mistake, I couldn’t find any. The closest thing to an error I could find was calling herstory a standard term. It’s common enough in feminist writing, but found almost nowhere else, so calling it “standard” is a stretch. Just because it can be found in a dictionary doesn’t mean it’s standard. If that’s the biggest objection I could find, the authors are doing something right.
Origins of the Specious, by Patricia T. O’Conner & Stewart Kellerman. Random House, 2009. 288 pages. $22.00.
