bailedI tried. I really, really did. But in the end I just couldn't do it. With a mere 40 pages to go I had to call it. I could have read ten books in the time I got through the first 240 pages of this book. I love linguistics. I love travel books. I love little nuggets of factual information. This book has ALL of those things. But the author could not hold a thought through a paragraph. It was like stream of consciousness confusion.
The author is discussing Shakespeare's birthday which is arbitrarily celebrated April 23rd. But what really gets me was the Sept 2nd - Sept 14th part. Boy that work project due date came up fast. LOL
Ok... I have to put the book down and move my lap of cats. I've delayed all the longer I can. #motivationnegative
I'm supposed to be getting ready for a friend to visit this morning, and I just can't get started. Ugh...
If there was ever an embodiment of the "absent-minded professor" Crystal would be it.
Quote "I left Risbury and, my head full of poems and planning, turned the wrong way again..."
I've felt lost in this author's mind on more than one occasion.
But that changed with spellings from place to place, and then the French started writing things down for themselves.
Book Browser Syndrome. This is definitely a thing! #BBS
I wish second-hand and antiquarian bookstores were not becoming fewer and fewer here in the States.
"I remember once someone asking me...."
I have got to finish this book today. I cannot read it with my husband in the house and he's due home tonight. It's so foggy you can barely see the mountains. Perfect reading day!
This is always my fear anytime I'm standing in line for an autograph or picture.
"Cob... is a curious word. It has a remarkable range of senses, some dating back to the fifteenth century."
Spider, i.e. cobweb
Small rounded stones, i.e. cobblestones
The origins of words are so neat!
I find this book fascinating, a great mix of linguistics and travel. And as always, a lap full of cats. Milton, Larry and Curly say, "Hi".
pickThis language book -- also published as By Hook or By Crook -- is a fun romp with my favorite writer about English, David Crystal. He journeys through Wales and England while working with the BBC, all the while crafting a serendipitous travel journal of language interests and insights as he encounters them. This volume is more personal than his others, and so a good introduction to perhaps the most respected writer about English. Happy New Year.
By Hook Or By Crook: A Journey in Search of English | 
