Informative and instructive reviews on Amazon
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:06 am
I thought it might be productive to post about any books that have generated a fair amount of interest and even controversy in reviews on Amazon: note for example the range of stars awarded to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, and the reviewers' reasons why.
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/08 ... pr_helpful
The "most helpful" ordering puts *Geoffrey Pullum* <<swoon gibber>> (in his only amazon review to date) at the top of the heap, but it's the low-star (or generally negative) reviewers' comments that are perhaps the most "illuminating". It seems to be asking too much of these people to expect them to sift evidence, think for themselves and reach their own conclusions about what English they should use in whatever context; the problem with their "The mob is lynching the language" brigade/argument is that, whilst that may seem to be arguably true in some instances* (especially when it indeed seems to be the mob, rather than the "best" users in a crazy moment of carelessness, who are doing most of the lynching concerned), there would seem no principled or fair way of clearly and cleanly dividing these from the genuinely loony prescriptive dictums dreamt up by the ultra-power-mad.
To quote one reviewer (Richard Hershberger), 'The one-star reviewers overlook two points. The first is that Merriam Webster often gives firm advice. Those who claim that this book is "anything goes" are misrepresenting the book. Indeed, frequently this advice is exactly what the prescriptivists would give. Frequently it is not, but that's what happens when you let evidence influence your opinion. The second, more serious point is that a reader can learn the traditional conclusion even when Merriam Webster disagrees with it. If a reader wants to know Fowler's opinion this book will give it. There is no longer any need to actually own a copy of Fowler. So the objections to this book implicitly are that it gives more information than they would like. This is a peculiar objection to make of a reference work. It would be downright sinister were there reason to suspect these opinions to be at all thought out.'
Or another (S. Gustafson): 'Those who claim that this usage handbook is too lenient, or defends bad usage, seem to object chiefly to the fact that the authors here state their conclusions in terms of what is really at stake --- "if you write 'X', you are at risk of being corrected" --- rather than simply labelling them "wrong," as if some kind of moral judgment was being passed.'
Then there is Bob Manson: 'Language is a consensus, not an arbitrary master... and there are so many arbitrary masters that it's more a question of which one you decide to obey, not which one is correct. Many of the descriptions in M-W's usage guide demonstrate just how arbitrary other guides can be, as it's not unusual to see numerous conflicting recommendations.'
All of whom differ in their opinion from, say, S. Robertson: 'Some people examine a word as an entomologist does a bug. They love peering at every frazzled appendage, ragged bump, and slimy excretion and then announcing that it is a truly wonderful bug, that we all should love it, and that to think it ugly, clumsy, or offensive fails to perceive and appreciate its glorious evolution. These people write dictionaries. Others believe that, as with any tool, there are advantages in using the tool of language carefully. They believe that there are good bugs and bad bugs and that none should be used in soup. These people write books on usage. The two groups are often at odds since they write with different intention; Webster's inflamed the controversy in 1961, when it decided not to tell readers of its third unabridged dictionary which words were slang, colloquial, etc. (this oversimplifies; I do not have W3 at hand). A usage book by dictionary people - especially Webster's - would be a contradiction in terms were this a serious book. At heart, it is not. It is also not a usage book. It is a polemic against usage writers. A typical entry examines what usage writers have had to say about a word or construction and then announces that they were misguided, ignorant, or merely wrong. The tone is overtly patronizing and obnoxious; one can almost hear in the background, a la Beavis and Butthead, the authors' self-congratulatory sniggering. The moral is that usage is a pesky, pedantic thing best ignored in favor of saying whatever feels good. Feeling good is perhaps what this book is really about: don't worry if you have ever made one of these mistakes because it is not a mistake after all - the other guy was wrong, not you. Are usage writers ever misguided, ignorant, or wrong? Yes, especially since too many are dilettante journalists and free-lancers peddling old wives' tales and personal whim. That does not mean that if you write as well as a bug does people will love you. If you are looking for a guide to usage, look elsewhere. Fowler's (Second Edition, not the recent Third) is probably still the best.'
In fact, there are quite a few more pretty quotable bits, but this is Dave's, not Amazon, so I'll stop there.
Although most here on Dave's would probably agree with those reviewers who think it a good book, there are sometimes people (especially on the International forums) who think that we should be much more prescriptive; then there has been a fair amount of knicker-wringing on the AL forum about how fair it is to teach to any sort of standard, however descriptively or democratically it might be arrived at, when there is so much English that is still "out there".
Anyway, reading this sort of review can mirror and/or complement the sort of discussions (debates?) that we sometimes have here too.
*That being said, about the only example in the reviews themselves that seems valid is the prescriptive "solution" to '!!!Where's X at?' (*/?Where's it?) > 'Where is it?': 'Let's consider an example of its "persuasive argument": It's all right to say, "Where's it at?" this book asseverates because "Where's it?" would sound funny. That's its argument--I'm not making this up. This is my argument: It's not all right to say, "Where's it at?" because "where" means "at what place", and thus 'Where's it at?" is equivalent to "At what place is it at?" Too many "at"s. Yes, "Where's it?" sounds funny, so say "Where is it?" instead.' (By A. Customer). Note that a longer word (i.e. not a pronoun) would be OK with the contraction though: Where's Kathy/the dog etc; and that 'Where's the party at?' (not really a genuine question about any particular party, to my mind) would sound fine, and cool to boot (and a quick look now in my M-W Concise edition confirms my intuitions by telling me that the idiomatic phrases where it's/one's at are used to evoke the language and attitudes of the 1960s and early 70s (i.e. the phrases came into widespread use in the 60s, which was presumably their heyday), and that other than in the foregoing phrases, 'at almost never occurs after where in writing from standard sources'. Seems like pretty good guidance then in the Concise at least, if you ask me).
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/08 ... pr_helpful
The "most helpful" ordering puts *Geoffrey Pullum* <<swoon gibber>> (in his only amazon review to date) at the top of the heap, but it's the low-star (or generally negative) reviewers' comments that are perhaps the most "illuminating". It seems to be asking too much of these people to expect them to sift evidence, think for themselves and reach their own conclusions about what English they should use in whatever context; the problem with their "The mob is lynching the language" brigade/argument is that, whilst that may seem to be arguably true in some instances* (especially when it indeed seems to be the mob, rather than the "best" users in a crazy moment of carelessness, who are doing most of the lynching concerned), there would seem no principled or fair way of clearly and cleanly dividing these from the genuinely loony prescriptive dictums dreamt up by the ultra-power-mad.
To quote one reviewer (Richard Hershberger), 'The one-star reviewers overlook two points. The first is that Merriam Webster often gives firm advice. Those who claim that this book is "anything goes" are misrepresenting the book. Indeed, frequently this advice is exactly what the prescriptivists would give. Frequently it is not, but that's what happens when you let evidence influence your opinion. The second, more serious point is that a reader can learn the traditional conclusion even when Merriam Webster disagrees with it. If a reader wants to know Fowler's opinion this book will give it. There is no longer any need to actually own a copy of Fowler. So the objections to this book implicitly are that it gives more information than they would like. This is a peculiar objection to make of a reference work. It would be downright sinister were there reason to suspect these opinions to be at all thought out.'
Or another (S. Gustafson): 'Those who claim that this usage handbook is too lenient, or defends bad usage, seem to object chiefly to the fact that the authors here state their conclusions in terms of what is really at stake --- "if you write 'X', you are at risk of being corrected" --- rather than simply labelling them "wrong," as if some kind of moral judgment was being passed.'
Then there is Bob Manson: 'Language is a consensus, not an arbitrary master... and there are so many arbitrary masters that it's more a question of which one you decide to obey, not which one is correct. Many of the descriptions in M-W's usage guide demonstrate just how arbitrary other guides can be, as it's not unusual to see numerous conflicting recommendations.'
All of whom differ in their opinion from, say, S. Robertson: 'Some people examine a word as an entomologist does a bug. They love peering at every frazzled appendage, ragged bump, and slimy excretion and then announcing that it is a truly wonderful bug, that we all should love it, and that to think it ugly, clumsy, or offensive fails to perceive and appreciate its glorious evolution. These people write dictionaries. Others believe that, as with any tool, there are advantages in using the tool of language carefully. They believe that there are good bugs and bad bugs and that none should be used in soup. These people write books on usage. The two groups are often at odds since they write with different intention; Webster's inflamed the controversy in 1961, when it decided not to tell readers of its third unabridged dictionary which words were slang, colloquial, etc. (this oversimplifies; I do not have W3 at hand). A usage book by dictionary people - especially Webster's - would be a contradiction in terms were this a serious book. At heart, it is not. It is also not a usage book. It is a polemic against usage writers. A typical entry examines what usage writers have had to say about a word or construction and then announces that they were misguided, ignorant, or merely wrong. The tone is overtly patronizing and obnoxious; one can almost hear in the background, a la Beavis and Butthead, the authors' self-congratulatory sniggering. The moral is that usage is a pesky, pedantic thing best ignored in favor of saying whatever feels good. Feeling good is perhaps what this book is really about: don't worry if you have ever made one of these mistakes because it is not a mistake after all - the other guy was wrong, not you. Are usage writers ever misguided, ignorant, or wrong? Yes, especially since too many are dilettante journalists and free-lancers peddling old wives' tales and personal whim. That does not mean that if you write as well as a bug does people will love you. If you are looking for a guide to usage, look elsewhere. Fowler's (Second Edition, not the recent Third) is probably still the best.'
In fact, there are quite a few more pretty quotable bits, but this is Dave's, not Amazon, so I'll stop there.
Although most here on Dave's would probably agree with those reviewers who think it a good book, there are sometimes people (especially on the International forums) who think that we should be much more prescriptive; then there has been a fair amount of knicker-wringing on the AL forum about how fair it is to teach to any sort of standard, however descriptively or democratically it might be arrived at, when there is so much English that is still "out there".
Anyway, reading this sort of review can mirror and/or complement the sort of discussions (debates?) that we sometimes have here too.
*That being said, about the only example in the reviews themselves that seems valid is the prescriptive "solution" to '!!!Where's X at?' (*/?Where's it?) > 'Where is it?': 'Let's consider an example of its "persuasive argument": It's all right to say, "Where's it at?" this book asseverates because "Where's it?" would sound funny. That's its argument--I'm not making this up. This is my argument: It's not all right to say, "Where's it at?" because "where" means "at what place", and thus 'Where's it at?" is equivalent to "At what place is it at?" Too many "at"s. Yes, "Where's it?" sounds funny, so say "Where is it?" instead.' (By A. Customer). Note that a longer word (i.e. not a pronoun) would be OK with the contraction though: Where's Kathy/the dog etc; and that 'Where's the party at?' (not really a genuine question about any particular party, to my mind) would sound fine, and cool to boot (and a quick look now in my M-W Concise edition confirms my intuitions by telling me that the idiomatic phrases where it's/one's at are used to evoke the language and attitudes of the 1960s and early 70s (i.e. the phrases came into widespread use in the 60s, which was presumably their heyday), and that other than in the foregoing phrases, 'at almost never occurs after where in writing from standard sources'. Seems like pretty good guidance then in the Concise at least, if you ask me).
)
A real disappointment considering that Neil Jordan was the director and had apparently rewritten or evolved ( 
) certain aspects of the original "vigilante" script).
), in the 'making of' featurette, a producer said 'Blah blah blah and we evolved it...' (=developed). 
So I go and look in Merriam-Webster and it doesn't mention 'evolve' in this sort of "high-powered" producer-talk, but it does mention 'evolute'. 