Customer Reviews

English as She Is Spoke: Being a Comprehensive Phrasebook of the English Language, Written by Men to Whom English was Entirely Unknown (Collins Library)

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I know that it is not politically correct to make fun of foreigners who can't read or write English (unless they're from Texas), nor should we laugh at their resultant manglings.

But what about foreigners who deliberately set out to write an English guidebook for Portugese-speakers and get it all kinds of wrong. After all, they kind of ask for it, right?

Especially if those translators spoke NO English...

And did not have an English-Portugese dictionary...

Well, I think that's probably OK to laugh at. And laugh at it you will. The entries are so mangled they're almost poetry. I also enjoyed the fact that, since it is a 19th century book, it deals with those extremely odd arcane things, like bedwarmers and used horses.

If you want to know how to insult your hairdresser or avoid buying a really bad used horse (either in English or Portuguese), then this is the book for you. The the proper terms for "chastisements" ("the iron collar," "the torture rack"). Learn some familiar phrases ("These apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in mouth.") Why don't they write books like this anymore? "There is a reason for that, it is that you cannot to sell its. The actual liking of the public is depraved they does not read who for to amuse one's self ant but to instruct one's." This is a book to read for to amuse one's self.

Like a Seinfeld or I Love Lucy sitcom episode, the idea that you could write a book about the English language without being able to speak it - side splitting. I heard about this book on NPR and sought it for years. The hard cover was back ordered for a very long time so when the soft cover came my way, I grabbed it and went to the bath..err library. Funny stuff. Ironic, laughable, really silly and unique.

If you collect unusual literature, love humor or just need a laugh - give this book a read.

Just a quick note on a common error publishers make about the author of this book. They credit it (as here) to both Jose da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino, but actually Pedro Carolino wrote it. Jose da Fonseca was the person who wrote the Portuguese/French Dictionary Carolino consulted. Small detail, but that's where the devil is, right?

Enjoy this hilarious book.

There is a short article in the March-April 2007 issue of Mental Floss magazine which expands a bit on "Original Cowgirls" explanation. According to the article, Fonseca was a legitimate scholar whose language guides weren't "lost in translation". Nineteen years after the publication of Fonseca's Portugese-French guide, Carolino did a poor translation and included Fonseca's name in the title

First, let me say that I am a native Portuguese speaker and that I understand English very well (though my writing skills are not that good, I ask you to comment this review if you see any grammatical error), this book is a classic, it's so funny that people in the metro thought that I was mad because of the loud laughs, that said, I recommend someone to have a passable reading ability in some romance language to fully enjoy this book, if portuguese is a problem for you could try to learn to read in some other language, specially spanish that is closer to portuguese, catalan, italian or french will do if you're good with languages and have a portuguese dictionary.

I'd heard about this book years ago, but just bought it recently. It doesn't disappoint! It's the sort of thing that could never be created these days - more's the pity - and every page contains some strange gem. We've had it on the coffee table since it arrived, and just dip in at random from time to time, reading aloud the best of what we find. You wouldn't want to sit and read it straight through from cover to cover, but it's none the worse for that.

For fans of language and lovers of the unusual and the absurd!

A very funny book, although it was not authored with this goal in mind. It has become a favorite gift to those friends of mine who love books and the English language in general.

In January 1864, Fred Seward, the son of Lincoln's Secretary of State, wrote of Lincoln and his young secretary, John Hay, walking over to the elder Seward's house one evening to share English As She Is Spoke. Once there, "As John Hay read aloud its queer inverted sentences, Lincoln and Seward laughed heartily, their minds finding a brief but welcome relief from care."

There is a certain satisfaction as now we laugh heartily at those same inverted sentences, knowing that we are sharing something special with one of the greatest men to have ever lived. If only, in the midst of our own war, we had a president with Lincoln's genuine and humble sense of humor.

My book was sent from the U.S to Australia and it arrived much quicker than expected. The book is very funny and I reccomend it to anyone who loves wit and humour based on the clever use of language.