I just discovered that my fellow translator at work is a bigger language geek than I am (he's self-studying Romanian and Turkish at the moment, two languages that vaguely fascinated me before but was too distracted at the time to do more than a half-hearted start. I did, however, learn that Dragostea din tei song, otherwise known as the nu ma nu ma iei one. Although I don't know if I should actually be proud of that). Aaanyway, I tried to hold my ground by admitting that I too have tried to self-start on a language, offering a brief summary of my 5-month-long intensive Hebrew learning, in an attempt to quell rising panic because I had just recently graduated and was alarmed (and a little surprised to be honest) to find that I still had no direction in life. Anyway, BLG (bigger language geek) has been kind enough to lend me this book. Yes, it's that picture on the left! It's by a Richard Lederer. I must admit that I have no idea who he is and what he does but I think that he is a good good man. I read the back and I practically squealed, so excited was I about it. Here, you should read the back too! Do it!
Welcome to Richard Lederer's beguiling celebration of language -- of our ability to utter, write, and receive words. No purists need stop here. Mr. Lederer is no linguistic sheriff organizing posses to hunt down and string up language offenders. Instead, join him "In Praise of English," and discover why the tongue described in Shakespeare's day as "of small reatch" has become the most widely spoken language in history:
"English never rejects a word because of race, creed, or national origin. Did you know that" jukebox "comes from Gullah and" canoe "from Haitian Creole?" "Many of our greatest writers have invented words and bequeathed new expressions to our eveyday conversations. Can you imagine making up almost ten percent of our written vocabulary? Scholars now know that William Shakespeare did just that!"
He also points out the pitfalls and pratfalls of English. If a man mans a station, what does a woman do? In the "The Department of Redundancy Department," "Is English Prejudiced?" and other essays, Richard Lederer urges us not to abandon that which makes us human: the capacity to distinguish, discriminate, compare, and evaluate.
Well? Don't tell me that that doesn't just tickle your fancy?! Teehee!
BLG lent me another book before he left for Istanbul for a conference. It's this one on the left. I'm halfway through it and I don't want to read it anymore. I've been halfway through it for 2 days now, I'm trying my best to finish it but I just can't do it. I guess my best wasn't good enough huhuhu. When I'm not enjoying a book, I usually try to get to the end of it, just so I can say, "There I'm done and I think it's crap, I know because I suffered this monstrosity to its last word". And sometimes good endings make it all worthwhile. I'll never know if I don't keep reading. But I simply just can't do it with this one. It's 
horrific. When I have this book open, I keep checking how much further I have left to read and I just, well there's just no bloody end to it. I see myself reading nothing else for weeks, and the thought fills me with dread and anguish. It's a parody (see it written on the bottom bit of the cover) of this book on the right. This is the one I really wanted to read especially because BLG explained why its title is what it is, but he couldn't find it. He thinks he lent it to someone who never returned it. Yay I feel so much better now that I've decided to give up on it. I didn't realize I was being oppressed by this shite book.
