A World without "Whom" by Emmy Favilla

A WORLD WITHOUT "WHOM" by Emmy J. Favilla is subtitled “The Essential Guide to Language in the BuzzFeed Age.” Favilla, who is BuzzFeed’s Copy Chief, should know and she certainly provides an entertaining look at rules and etiquette with respect to language.  Her text describes the evolution of the guide and reasons behind many of the choices. Plus, there are plenty of tweets, emojis, and lists, including, for example, almost 4 pages filled with definitions of British swearwords. The international perspective adds a welcome note and reinforces the idea that language is ever evolving.  There is even a whole chapter on How Not to Be a Jerk (when writing about sensitive topics). Or how about the “old-timey words you need to start using again” like horsefeathers, flapdoodle and bafflegab?

 

Upbeat and relaxed, A WORLD WITHOUT "WHOM" will make you laugh and teach you quite a bit.  It has four appendices (includes BuzzFeed Style Guide Word Lists for the US and the UK), extensive notes, additional quizzes and an index to improve use-ability (see several pages on proper use of hyphens… and ellipses). Enjoy! 

Non-Fiction: Language, Words, Freedom of the Press

I have been reading a couple of non-fiction works which have to do with language and freedom of the press – seems appropriate with the presidential debates looming on the horizon.

In Words on the Move, author John McWhorter points out that “one of the hardest things for a human being to shake is that language is something that is, when it is actually something always becoming.” His text provides an intriguing review for linguists and others interested in the topic of why “English won’t – and can’t – sit still,” but his descriptions become increasingly technical for the average reader. McWhorter does attempt to address this, for example, by comparing the mutability of language to the transformation of clouds or by explaining that dafter lead to dawter and eventually to daughter, although it no longer rhymes with laughter. He teaches at Columbia University and more examples from Words on the Move were featured recently on NPR.  McWhorter's work is informative, but even though our AP English students often have an assignment dealing with words and their origins, they are apt to be more engaged by related and shorter selections found in Ben Zimmer’s weekly “Word on the Street” from The Wall Street Journal. Today’s topic: “Captain Boycott and his Legacy.”

Indelible Ink by Richard Kluger is subtitled “The Trials of John Peter Zengler and the Birth of America’s Free Press.” Chronicling events in the 1730’s, this text provides a thoroughly researched and documented history, much like Kluger’s earlier published works.  In fact, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Ashes to Ashes, about the cigarette industry, and was twice a National Book Award finalist (for The Paper and for Simple Justice).  His writing about the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision, Simple Justice, was originally published in 1976 and revised and expanded in 2004; it remains a personal favorite (despite its length) and is a book that definitely impacted me at a young age.  I hope that our students have similar opportunities to reflect on themes detailed in Kluger’s Indelible Ink, including abuse of power, national security, and the need to prove that offending language was “false, malicious, seditious and scandalous.” Indelible Ink received starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

Word Exchange by Alena Graedon

The Word Exchange is an extremely ambitious book and there are portions of it which are so clever – it’s set in the near future at a time when the printed word is disappearing and everyone seems to be catching “word flu” and struggling to communicate without the aid of handheld devices. I really love the way the author weaves in newly created words and how the chapters are ordered alphabetically, each with a word and definition which applies to its content.  Alena Graedon succeeded, too, in making me think about my own reliance on devices and technology. I even improved my vocabulary as I read this as an eBook and used the dictionary feature to review actual, but somewhat less commonly used words.

On the other hand, I have really struggled to stay with this book and to finish it. It does not hold my interest, especially when Bart (character who is working on a new dictionary) is speaking/writing to us. I have suggested the title to several English teachers because I think that they will be intrigued by the story and its literary allusions, but I wish it was shorter so that more of our students would read and discuss this dystopian situation and some of the important ideas which it explores.

See what you think – we have a copy of Word Exchange available for checkout. Other “read-alikes” might include The Circle by Eggers or The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester.