The Prodigal Tongue

Dnf 30%

The author???s tone was incredibly negative (no sign of the humo(u)r promised in the blurb). She spends a lot of time talking about how Brits hate the Americanisation of the English language, cherry picking examples to agree with her point. While it would be wrong of me to discount her experience of living in the uk, I don???t agree with this as the prevailing attitude and it bothers me that American readers of this book might take it as fact rather than opinion.

Yes, some people will object to things such as ???could care less??? but that???s more about the poor grammar. The reality is that language evolves, and speaking as a Brit, a huge proportion of our entertainment media originates in the USA and people will learn from that without seeing it as different/wrong. In my 40+ years on the planet (most spent in England) I???ve never encountered anywhere near the degree of negativity that is supposed to exist towards Americanisms.

I picked this up hoping to learn about some of the language differences after enjoying the author???s blog. There were some examples but as of 30% though, there weren???t enough to make me continue.