Customer Reviews

Between You and I: A Little Book of Bad English

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I have to admit I enjoy reading slim volumes like this that focus on language, whether it's the misuse of commonly used words or untranslatable words from another culture or when to insert commas. In the spirit of Lynne Truss's "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" and Christopher Moore's "In Other Words", James Cochrane covers roughly two hundred words, phrases, and expressions that are frequently misused, mispronounced, or misspelled. In many cases, Cochrane, an editor at Penguin Books, gives real-world examples from people who really should know better: writers, journalists, broadcasters, and other public figures. Throughout, his style is light and readable. As usual with these types of books, he can come across as pedantic and prescriptive, but on the whole he gets the right tone to ingratiate the reader.

Cochrane arranges the book alphabetically, with a couple of paragraphs describing each entry and the common error attached to it. I received the most value from the sections highlighting frequently confused words. Cochrane tells the reader how to choose the correct term from pairs such as comprised and composed, discrete and discreet, flout and flaunt, who and whom, and even some you probably thought you understood like envy and jealousy. Other sections of value focus on his mission to stamp out the redundancy in expressions like free gift, ongoing situation, and at this moment in time. Another area of concern for the author is the misuse of plurals. He points out that bacterium is the singular form of bacteria, criterion of criteria, stratum of strata, phenomenon of phenomena and a new one for me, graffito for graffiti. There are some random jewels to be mined here, for example, the mistaken use of alibi to mean any excuse, rather than a plea that when the crime was committed the suspect was somewhere else; or the misuse of "epicenter" to mean simply a center, rather than the technical sense of the point on the Earth's surface immediately above the origin of an earthquake; or stating the oft-turned phrase of "a panacea for all ills" is a redundancy since a panacea is already a universal cure. Many more await the reader, and if you're like me, your paranoia will increase with what will come out of your mouth as a result. A genuinely entertaining read if not in the same league as the gold standard on such breeches, Stunk and White's "Elements of Style".

This book was easy to read and quite fun. It has lots of sayings that make you say, "Ah-ha" when you realize something you hear all the time is wrong, or at least questionable. Some of the entries have some good research and background. I think everyone would like this book because there is enough variety that every person will find some phrases they also think are barbaric and others they'll disagree with the author about (oops, ended my sentence with a preposition, I think...). So lots of debate topics available and it will make you think.

However, the book is a bit shallow; some of the reasoning and "background" on some of the phrases seems suspect; it is certainly not a rigorously researched book and by no means complete or authoritative. It reads as if it was written by someone who knows English well, has some pet peeves, and is probably right about a lot of things, but didn't put a whole lot of effort into research for the book. I found _Eats, Shoots, and Leaves_ to be even better than this book. Wittier, if nothing else. Still, this book is fun and very quick read. Worth it if you don't pay full price and definitely worth it if you can get your friends to read it so you can argue with them! :-).

Step aside, Lynne Truss, James Cochrane has taken center stage. Going beyond the ignorant scree of Truss, Cochrane provides clear rationales for correct word usage. One bemoans his "Losr Causes," but learns much about communication in this tiny book. The USA edition employs American spelling, which is appreciated. The only flaw is that good information gets buried, because there is no index.

Bad English isn't just about swearing and slang: it's also to be found in seemingly educated language as well as in uneducated writing: Cambridge University graduate and editor James Cochrane here assembles some of the best faux paus of the English language, providing not only an a-z dictionary of commonly misused words and phrases, but examples of how they are misused and when a better word would be more appropriate. Between You and I is a lively, fun read as well as a basic primer in proper usage.

Bad English isn't just about swearing and slang: it's also to be found in seemingly educated language as well as in uneducated writing: Cambridge University graduate and editor James Cochrane here assembles some of the best faux paus of the English language, providing not only an a-z dictionary of commonly misused words and phrases, but examples of how they are misused and when a better word would be more appropriate. Between You and I is a lively, fun read as well as a basic primer in proper usage.

I am really disappointed (or appalled) by the fact that this guy does not appear to have any understanding of the cause of the problem he used as the title of his book! When kids would say "Jim and me went to the mall," around the 70s when it became popular to have children attend school without actually teaching them anything, teachers started correcting them, "'Jim and I', not 'Jim and me'!" without teaching them anything about why "Jim and me" was wrong. They had no choice but to "learn" that it is wrong to say "Jim and me," and that "Jim and I" must always be used instead. No one taught them that it is just as wrong to use "Jim and I" after a preposition, as it is to use "Jim and me" as the subject. There isn't the slightest question as to why people go around saying "between you and I" today, but the author of this book writes that he doesn't really know quite how this has happened. Incredible.

Maybe I'm burned out on the genre. Technically this book is just as helpful as any other of its ilk, but I didn't find it the joy that "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" was.

the book was good that i would like to read it again because i told my teacher about it and she want me to do a research on it

I found the book quite useful because I was guilty of quite a number of the mistakes that the author points out.

I would have found the book easier to "use" if the author had clear "right" and "wrong" examples for each case. I guess I'm used to "... for Dummies" books, but at times I had to re-read an example to make sure I understood which case was right, and which wrong.

This is a good book as it opened my eyes to some of the mistakes I have been making, but more useful is Strunk and White's Elements of Style.