Customer Reviews

The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations: The Complete Opinionated Guide for the Careful Speaker

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I found myself roaring with laughter one minute, with chagrin the next, and occasionally rage. Some of his favorite pronunciations I would wager have never been heard, nor spoken, west of the Mississippi. On the other hand, his preference for trauma (trawma rather than trowma) made me a friend for life. By condemning nu-cu-lar and sim-u-lar, two abominations used repeatedly by my inlaws, he gave release to thirty years of frustration that I could not afford to vent.

I couldn't disagree more with the first reviewer from San Fran. Few disagree with standards for spelling, grammar, or definitions; why should pronunciation be any different? I don't agree with all of Elster's prescriptions, (yes, it is prescriptive-- is Webster's not?) but he gives well-presented reasons for all of his conclusions and admits when he's just being arbitrary. Just like bad spelling, improper speaking does and should separate the careful from the cloddish. The author openly says the book is intended as a guide to American pronunciation, so Brits and Cans need not be offended (e.g. it doesn't necessarily matter how Newfoundlanders pronounce Newfoundland-- they don't speak American English). Of course for those of the, "make a mistake often enough and it becomes correct" school of thought, it will be of no use.

Read in the proper spirit, this is an absolutely hysterical book (in whatever sense of "hysterical" one choses). Elster's methodology is simple enough: for any given word he defers to dictionaries and pronunciation guides from the first half of the 20th century. Works from the 19th century are cited if they support his conclusion and ignored if they do not. Works from the second half of the 20th century are cited, either to support his conclusion or to decry the corruption of the language.

So far this is fairly uninteresting. The reader could simply buy an old dictionary from a used book store and get the same information. The humor comes from the justifications Elster presents. Is his favored pronunciation used by most educated people? That proves his point! Is it used by virtually no one? That proves the need for this book! If he favors an anglicized pronunciation of a borrowed word, well, we are speaking English and the foreign pronunciation is pretentious. If he favors the foreign pronunciation then only ignorant buffoons anglicize it! If a word is used in print more than in speech, and many readers phonetically (mis)pronounce it, he will chastise them for not checking in a dictionary. This is often followed by the information that the unapproved pronunciation in fact occurs in modern dictionaries. Apparently we are being chastised for not checking an *old* dictionary.

Best of all are those instances where it is his ox being gored. These are rare. Ordinarily his devotion to authority is slavish. But the few occasions are worth the search. He will go on for pages explaining how on this occasion the authorities are wrong and that in this rare case the pronunciation used by everyone (read: Elster himself) is correct. Check out his discussion of "modem" for a good example.

If you want a guide for pronunciation, buy a good dictionary. If you want a treasure trove of humorous bathroom reading, this is for you!

The book is quite enjoyable, but ought not to be taken too seriously. There is one major error, though. His suggested pronunciations for the word "Newfoundland" are simply wrong. I should know. I'm a Newfoundlander. No-one in Newfoundland would use either pronunciation given in the book. His suggestion 'N(Y)OO-fun(d)-lund' marks anyone who uses it as American. We tend to regard it with polite exasperation. We are not a part of the United States and don't really expect Americans to be able to pronounce it properly. The other suggestion: n(y)oo-FOUND-lund is even worse. It marks you as Canadian and is likely to produce hoots of derision if you use it in earshot of a Newfoundlander. What is the proper pronunciation? It rhymes with "understand." nyoo-fund-LAND. Sometimes there is slight secondary stress on the first syllable. When referring to the dog, the main stress is on the word DOG, with approximately equal secondary stresses on the first and third syllables of Newfoundland. Never, ever is it pronounced Nyoo-FOUND-lund!

If you care about how you sound and the way you come across to other people, you'll want this book. It's a reference you'll want in whatever room you're in. You'll discover everyday words that are being mispronounced by newscasters and, more likely, by you. At least I did. And I'm a writer who prides herself on knowing words well! This book is for the American. It gives American pronounciation that is accepted by the educated class. It disdains words that are used for effect. And if a word is right in the UK but not America it will tell you so. Words like Missouri, Vase, the days of the week, yesterday, rather, begin and hundreds more are explained. You will learn the background on the usage. You will learn how to correctly pronounce February. Now that's a challenge! This is a terrific book and I highly recommend it. If I could give it more than five stars I would! Buy it!!

Elster could be a blow-hard. He could be a nauseating pedant. Instead, he's the charmingly gnomish author of this magnificently entertaining book. Like many of us, he had a mother who would pin his ears to the wall if he dared confuse who with whom. And this guy's mom knew that "flaccid" is pronounced "Flak-sid", did you? Or how's this: try ordering a "daiquiri" (Dy-kuh-ree). Good luck; but of course you'll be correct. This very BIG book of "beastly" mispronunciations is gleefully entertaining. You won't just get the correct pronunciations, but concise reasoning on why a word crept into the language, why it should be tossed out, who corrupted it, and why we tend to garble nuclear (N(Y)oo-kle-ur), while clinging to the "psuedo-French"- ified envelope (AHN-vul-lohp). This could be nothing more than a pesky book, but Elster is so passionate about the Language, and so wildly fun that it's just great reading-- if not terminally humbling. Three distinct groups deserve this gift: Post-modernists who will turn away in horror (then read it on the sly), people who speak English, and those who find in words the delicate beauty of a very good opera-- when sung correctly.

Admit it: from time to time, we all like to use a ten dollar word to demonstrate our mastery of the English language. As President W. Bush can attest, however, nothing's more embarrassing at such moments than discovering you've just mispronounced the word.

To our rescue comes Charles Harrington Elster, an expert in the ways of saying words correctly. In "The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations," he provides not only an almost exhaustive list of frequently mispronounced words, but clear and entertaining explanations and arguments of why his pronunciation is correct.

Elster has carefully researched each word, providing evidence from dictionaries, usage in broadcast media, and historical linguistics to explain why a word ought to be said in a certain way.

Elster is someone who cares about the English language. The role of language is to communicate, and communication is impossible if we cannot understand one another. Thus, common pronunciation of words is significant.

On the whole, Elster prefers pronunciations that have history and permanence. Many arguments for words I thought I'd been saying all along were clearly presented with his preferred pronunciation in my dictionary. He does concede in some cases that a common mispronunciation of a word has become correct, by sheer weight of usage. He also is careful to note pronunciations that differ between British and American English. He also provides the correct pronunciation of some names and places.

As someone who shares Elster's love of the language, I recommend this book highly. It's one of my most-used reference books, and not just because it's stored in the guest bathroom.

The name of this book is what caught my eye, but, as soon as I opened it, I realized how great it is. I learned of quite a few mistakes I make, and often WHY. The author's somewhat ranting tone makes an otherwise dense and boring subject a bit more approachable. I highly recommend this book.

If you've been looking for a book that will teach you to be a complete drag about pronunciation, look no further. Elster's extremely prescriptivist point of view is very straightforward: there are correct pronunciations, and there are "beastly" pronunciations. Anyone who uses one of the latter is a clod. If you pronounce certain words of foreign origin with too much of their original flavor, you are pseudo-sophisticated; if you pronounce others with too much Anglicization, you are illiterate. If you drop certain syllables through syncope, you are a lazy speaker; if you include others, you are over-nice. In short, the only way to be a careful speaker is to pronounce one's words exactly as Elster does.

It's perfectly appropriate for a pronunciation guide to be firm in its opinions. What's not appropriate is for those opinions to be capricious, and defended with extreme violence. To read this book is to wade through a torrent of bile and abuse. Lest you think I exaggerate, here are a couple of samples: "... the next time you pay a visit to the monkey house at your local zoo you are sure to hear Joe and Jane Average and their unexceptional kids say ur-RANG-uh-TANG." "The imbroglio ... over *bulimia* and *bulimic* proves yet again that human stupidity is rampant at *all* levels of speech, from the most ignorant, beastly mispronouncer to the most erudite, self-important egghead. What is wrong with everybody, anyway? Is the word really so hard to pronounce properly?"

On the plus side, most of his pronunciations are perfectly reasonable (i.e., the same ones I use, or, from time to time, genuinely better). If, though, like me, you spent a few formative years in the UK, you'll get a bit tired of hearing your perfectly natural pronunciations derided as "affected" (a particularly amusing insult coming from one who says DES-pic-a-ble, gri-MACE, and pro-MUL-gate). Elster has no use for the language except as a weapon, and he assumes everyone chooses their pronunciations either out of a desire to impress or a lazy denial thereof; regional variations, and those due to personal history, get no slack from him.

In short, there's no reason to put up with Elster's attitude when a dictionary will suffice.

If you have ever gone into convulsions upon hearing the word "government" pronounced "GUV-uh-mint," then this book is for you. A delight for logophiles everywhere who are concerned with stamping out the terror of badly rendered pronunciations .