Appearance
Made in America
Bill Bryson is always entertaining, which is the main goal behind his writing. He is also somewhat of a rarity, being an American who understands irony in its many forms. However, if you want the whole story of American English I would suggest the book "The Story of English", which adopts a more scholarly approach but is really quite gripping!
Made in America
I have read almost everything Bryson has written and this is just another great book. He is an amazing author that can combine learning with a LOT of humor. His ability to translate humor to the page is a very rare gift and I look every few months online to see if he has published anything new.
Made in America
America can be proud of Bill Bryson, and we should be eternally grateful for the mountain of research distilled into the pages of this wonderful book. With every page we find ourselves wondering, "How on Earth did he ever find this out?" For instance, at the outset we learn that "ye" is a contraction of "the" and was always pronounced "the" and not "yee." I wonder if the members of "Ye Olde Newgate Coon Club," in Norfolk, CT, know that? But this book isn't even primarily about orthography, but about American history, and how our language evolved as our country evolved. For instance we learn that Ben Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanack" was for twenty-five years the country's second largest selling book, after the Bible. Nor is Bryson's book a purely etymological study, though we learn, as the Constitution is explained to us, that "federal" derives from the Latin "fides," for "faith." And we learn that "federal" was selected over the more emotive "national" because back then the word still carried the sense of a relationship resting on faith. Oh, how things have changed! Sometimes Made in America is a straightforward history, as when we learn the origin of our four time zones, or how the dollar was adopted as our monetary unit. Want to know were "southpaw," "bleachers," and "charley horse" came from? This is your book. As with all his writing, Bryson interrupts the informative stream of knowledge with humor. Why, he wonders, doesn't the otherwise faithfully reconstructed colonial village of Williamsburg preserve any of the three brothels which were originally there? The ten pages of bibliography provides a partial answer to the question of how he ever figured all this stuff out. The project of explaining the origins and evolution of American English has been tackled by many others, however we have Bryson to thank for distilling the most interesting features, mixing in history, orthography, etymology, and humor. Thanks, Bill.
Made in America
I read this for an undergrad class (don't ask me why) and at first found it quite enjoyable. My knowledge of history is weaker than I'd like, a fact about which I am sometimes self-conscious. However, what history I do know, I know. Apparently Bryson and I have different areas of expertise. For instance, early on he makes a point about the rhyming nature of "was" and "pass" during the 19th century. While I am not ABSOLUTELY certain that this linguistic nuance was dead by the 19th century (and I would wager money it was dead), Bryson quotes a 17th century poem (one of the Althea poems, if I remember correctly, by Richard Lovelace) to make his claim and then cites the poem as being part of a series of poems written by LORD BYRON. Really?? These people are only separated by about 150 years, Bill, and belong to radically different movements.You might say, "That's no big deal. He made a mistake." I personally can stand an editing mistake--punctuation, grammar, extra words, whatever. Mistakes with facts (especially in a book that presents itself as history--read "fact-based") are a little more difficult for me to swallow. Second example:Mr. Bryson talks about the "puke stockings"--people who came over on the Mayflower--as being called so because they would puke all over their own stockings from being seasick. Um, no? Puke was a high-grade fabric used during the 16th and 17th centuries with its own distinctive color (which only later became associated with the stuff that comes up after a night of drinking). So Bryson is wrong again. Google this if you don't believe me.At this point I can only speak from the word of a trusted friend, but Bryson has also apparently misrepresented the nature of Puritan marriage and engagement as well. While he paints a picture of the Puritans as being a little "loose in the sack" (yes, tongue-in-cheek), he fails to understand the nuances of Puritan marriages--what constituted marriage, etc.Now, yes, these are only three errors. But I must say, they are the only three errors that I caught, and I am no history buff. I could only ask myself as I continued to read, "How much else has he gotten wrong?" Another question continued to pop up: "Has he done these things simply to spice up his own book?" I don't think switching Lovelace for Byron would titillate anyone, but the puke-stockings and the Puritan thing are made to sound more exciting than they might otherwise be. In other words, for me, these errors damaged Bryson' ethos as a historian and I no longer trusted him.BOTTOM LINE: Bryson's writing engages and his facts (when they seem to be right) are interesting and sometimes shocking. He wries with zest and humor and revitalizes American history in many ways. Just read carefully and take this book with a handful of salt, as these revitalizations may not be historically accurate. Minus three for being sloppy (or dishonest).
Made in America
Pardon me while I whine a bit, but the reviewers who complain that the book lacks scholarship and similar pedantic complaints have missed the point. Bill Bryson is a writer, a storyteller, and man of wide interests who can churn out charming, remarkably well researched books at a satisfying rate. Like his History of Everything (the "history" of science), The Informal History of American English is not a textbook, not complete and not intended for a serious study of the language. It makes the point that language is evolutionary, a flexible, variable tool that, in America, probably has had a broader range of lasting influences than most languages, and those influences reflect American society. If you are a reader and like words and their derivations, this is dessert--fully satisfying but not the complete meal. He prefers the words and sayings that have good stories about them, and his 20 years of living in England are reflected in is often wry, dryly witty take on the facts. It is occasionally laugh out loud, has any number of chuckles and is interesting throughout. He writes easily and occasionally reflects some real depth in his efforts. He relies perhaps a bit too much on Mencken's research, but then they share a world view and sense of humor. Originally a travel writer, he takes a trip through American history and points out the bits that interest him most, and makes it enjoyable, entertaining and even educational. Like a conversation, the book sometimes wanders off topic to charming or ironic side note, but he always returns to the main road. If your expectations are reasonable, this book is a pleasure and I suspect you will pick it up later, from time to time, to remind yourself of the story or circumstances behind the way we speak or just to get a moment of intelligent wit. I gave it 4, instead of 5, stars because he could have written more, because it needs a little editing and because despite an impressive bibliography, a bit of the philosophy of language development would not have gone amiss. But for a pleasurable read on an interesting topic for the dilettante (history of the word dilettante is in the book), this is a good buy.
Made in America
I found "Made in America" to be an enjoyable read. More of the book is taken up with historical contexts than etymologies, but very interesting and informative nonetheless. As one who is routinely irked by the tendency of many non-American native speakers of English to denigrate the way Americans talk and write, I appreciated the validation of American "English" as a dynamic and creative langue in its' own right.