Customer Reviews

By Hook or By Crook

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
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Very well written, informative and interesting. Although the book is very Britain-centric, not surprising since this is a trip through England and Wales, there are many examples of the roots of American and other developing International English-es.
Highly recommended and I will certainly read other books by David Crystal.
SWalking English: A Journey in Search of Language

For someone like me, who loves language, geography, and history and who is, if not a born one, at least a long-time Anglophile, this book is the literary equivalent of an angel presenting me with a box of dark chocolates filled with all my favorite fillings--mint, orange, coffee, caramel, and that heavenly lime from Sanborn's Candies--and telling me I can eat all I feel comfortable doing so, since they have no calories and no fat! Basically Crystal starts off in Wales and relates travels through England as well as in Poland, San Francisco, and South Africa in a narrative of place names, word origins, history, changes in word meaning, Shakespearan plays and names, natural and man-made landmarks, that Welsh town with the long name that the locals just refer to as "Llanfair,' placing people by accents, sheep with accents, and more, all in a delightful candy-box jumble. I enjoyed it all with a big grin.

A big plus: learning about the humanitarian poet John Bradburne and the book town of Hay-on-Wye. I think I'd like to spend a week in the latter, thank you. :-)

[Note: Apparently Crystal titled this book BY HOOK OR BY CROOK, and refers to it as such in the introduction. Oddly, there is nothing on the title page or colophon that reflects a title change.]

For almost 300 pages, Professor Crystal wanders the backroads of Wales and the west of England (with an occasional excursion to Silicon Valley and to Lodz). This book is essentially little more than his random free-associations about local place names and language communities encountered along the way. Unfortunately, the writing lacks discipline and the author's observations tend to be largely pedestrian or hopelessly obscure.

I was particularly disppointed by the chapter dealing with Silicon Valley. The effect of the internet on English is a potentially fascinating topic, but Professor Crystal offered few fresh insights. This was hardly surprising, given that the extent of his research appears to have been a single afternoon's visit to a "high tech firm" in Silicon Valley. Neither does the author's recitation of San Francisco shop names spotted along Fisherman's Wharf make for interesting reading.

But a dull recitation of unconnected facts, with commentary that does little to illuminate, is the defining characteristic of this disappointing book. The occasional flashes of genuine wit are unfortunately few and far between.

While I think Mr. Crystal spills too many words on obscure Welsh place names and local British television references, which will be of little matter for most readers, I also think many of his leaping thoughts on the English language will be fun and informative for those who enjoy reading about the mother tongue.

I would have welcomed the author's sticking at greater length to some other topics he brings up in his book that I found to be of more absorbing interest, like the rapid growth of English usage in India and the Internet's novel impacts on our language.