When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better And/Or Worse (Hardcover)

by Ben Yagoda (Author)
Key Phrases: prep pron, sentence adverbs, New York Times, The Simpsons, African American (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Yagoda (The Sound on the Page) isn't trying to reinvent the style guide, just offering his personal tour of some of the English language's idiosyncrasies. Using the parts of speech as signposts, he charts an amiable path between those critics for whom any alterations to established grammar are hateful and those who believe whatever people use in speech is by default acceptable. Where many writing instructors rail against the use of adverbs, for example, he points out that they can be quite useful for conveying subtle relationships ordinary verbs can't describe. Some of this territory is familiar—Yagoda even boils down the debate over "hopefully" to outline form—but every chapter has gems tucked inside, like the section in pronouns on the "third-person athletic," the voice celebrity ballplayers use to refer to themselves in interviews. And he's definitely in love with his one-liners, such as the quip that the only acceptable use of "really" is "in imitations of Katharine Hepburn, Ed Sullivan and Elmer Fudd." Readers won't toss their copies of Strunk & White off the shelf, but Yagoda's witty grammar will rest comfortably next to the masters. (Feb. 13)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
Advance praise for If You Catch an Adjective, Kill It:

“Absolutely required—and utterly fun—reading for anyone who cares about the work-in-progress that is the English language. Marvelous in every way.” —Christopher Buckley

“All hail to Ben Yagoda! Not only has he publicly rescued mother from the ubiquitous debasement of mom, and consigned shall to the schoolmarm’s dead-rules inferno, but—ebulliently—he dresses Fowler, his eminent usage-predecessor, in relaxed American shoes. Yagoda’s invigorating interrogation of our language will excite every syntax-obsessed reader and writer. (And there are more of us than you might think.)”
—Cynthia Ozick --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1 edition (February 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767920775
• ISBN-13: 978-0767920773
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #532,967 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Parts of Speech Can Be Fun, April 3, 2007

By	R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Among writers of English, there is a strong interest in their own language, and a long tradition of manuals by writers who suggest how to use English without error. Ambrose Bierce wrote such a manual, and writers constantly refer (but not necessarily defer) to Fowler, and many can quote Strunk and White from memory. For some reason, contemporary writers on the subject of English are called "language mavens", and they are of two camps, the prescriptivists who would like to tell you how to say something properly according to the rules, and the descriptivists who document how the language is being (rather than should be) used. As usual, there are extremists at both ends of the spectrum, and it would be wise to stick to the middle. That does not mean staying bland. In _When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better and/or Worse_ (Basic Books), Ben Yagoda is happy to enjoy creative use of English that breaks rules. We would all be poorer without, for instance, Fats Waller's "One never knows, do one?" But he is also happy to emphasize (and, one assumes since he is an English teacher, enforce) the rules that work to promote clarity and understanding. His book isn't really a rulebook, but a survey in nine chapters of nine parts of speech, each a useful essay on usage.

"Ultimately, the issue of correctness just isn't very interesting," Yagoda writes. What is interesting are "words, phrases, and sentences that transcend their meaning - because they're smart, funny, well-crafted, pungent, unexpected, or sometimes wrong in just the right way." There are lots and lots of examples of such lively, perhaps grammatically questionable, usage in all the chapters here. The title of the book, about killing adjectives, is advice generally attributed to Mark Twain, who knew that using the right noun would preclude unnecessary adjectives. But adverbs get even less respect. Elmore Leonard wrote, "I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances 'full of rape and adverbs.'" Stephen King wrote, "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs." Yagoda says that two adverbs need special mention, and in so doing, demonstrates the subjective nature of judging usage. He doesn't like "arguably" as in, "He is arguably the best quarterback in the NFL", because it probably doesn't mean that anyone has taken this stance in an argument, but that the writer is withholding an opinion and standing behind a bogus adverb. But it is a surprise that he likes "like", as in "It's a complete obstruction of, like, freedom" because it makes the speaker seem less pompous (to be sure, this was a spoken, not a written example).

Yagoda dishes out such likes and dislikes in every chapter, with some being idiosyncratic and some conventional but for idiosyncratic reasons. For instance, in a section on sentence adverbs (one adverb to modify a whole sentence, as in "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"), he says that the most abused and annoying sentence adverb is "actually" which is overused as in "Actually, he's in a meeting", indicating that not only is he in a meeting, but I am actually telling you the truth when he is in a meeting. (It's fun to play the select-the-most-annoying game, and for worst-used adverb, I would have voted for "literally", as in, "She was literally walking on air.") He doesn't like "hopefully" except as meaning "done in a hopeful manner", as in, "He opened the treasure chest hopefully", but thinks it fills a need, as in "The package will arrive tomorrow, hopefully" since "... arrive tomorrow, I hope" sounds Pollyanna-ish. He would not accept, however, such a formation in a written essay. He shows to be foolish one of the prescriptivists' darling rules, that of never ending a sentence in a preposition. The original rule came from Latin usage, not English. While it is true that sentences as a rule should end strongly, forcing a preposition to the interior can weaken it, as in "We are such stuff on which dreams are made", or can render it stupid, as in repairing "I'm turning in," by "Turning in I am," which, Yagoda says, not even Yoda could spout with a straight face. There is plenty of good sense here, and fun in every chapter (yes, in a book about grammar), as well as entertaining sidelights on such things as the origin of the ampersand symbol and the inventor of the @ for e-mail addresses. There is also a lot of good advice quoted from great writers. Yagoda's book won't replace any style manuals, but his tone of tolerance for eccentricity and enthusiasm for colorful usage is welcome, and his own writing is clever and funny.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Grammar Rules, OK, March 15, 2007

By	Jennifer Stewart (write101.com Brisbane, Australia) - See all my reviews

Just what is it about the adjective that inspires such violent tendencies in otherwise peaceful people?

As Ben Yagoda writes, "They (adjectives) rank right up there with ... the customer-service policies of cable TV companies."

And the reason for this animosity is that adjectives are often used by lazy writers, "who don't stop to think that the concept is already in the noun."

Those of you who love words will appreciate the glossary of unusual adjectives. Words such as lambent, nugatory and piacular definitely deserve to be let out more often!

It's not just adjectives that are examined in entertaining detail - every part of speech is covered. F'r instance how much do you know about definite and indefinite articles?

One of the things I've noticed when I edit work for people whose second language is English is that they have real problems using articles, and now I understand why this is so.

As Ben explains, "... by the age of four, native English speakers know in their bones the difference between 'I drank Coke,' 'I drank the Coke,' and 'I drank a Coke,' and the fact that you take a pass but the easy way out."

Can you imagine trying to learn these differences as an adult? It seems the problem is compounded (or alleviated) depending on the learner's native language. "Romanian, Macedonian, Swedish, and Aztec append the definite article to the back of a noun, and Arabic to the front ... Swahili and Latin rarely use articles of any kind. ... Polish, Russian, and Japanese are article-less as well. Arabic, Welsh, and Esperanto have definite articles but no indefinite articles. In French and German, the definite article is applied to proper nouns and the names of abstractions and classes of things ..."

Aargh!

Which brings us neatly to interjections ...

And so the book is filled with such interesting details about language that you'll find yourself carrying it from room to room as you go about your chores, loath to put it down ... Or is that only me?

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Current Reflections On the Parts Of Speech', March 28, 2007

By	Stanley H. Nemeth (Garden Grove, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The author takes readers on an informative and often entertaining walk through Fowler and Follett territory, contemporary usage. Neither a strict prescriptivist nor a lax descriptivist, Yagoda has good things to say about some much maligned current uses of "like," and some delightfully nasty ones about such a locution as "Mom." What distinguishes his presentation, and is evident throughout, is his middle-of-the-road sweet reasonableness. If his book has a limitation, though, I'd say it's the problem of his reiterating the obvious. That adverbs and adjectives can rob verbs of power or tumble into redundancy, that overuse of prepositions or triple and quadruple noun compounds will make prose bureaucratic and opaque, that verbs are the most important words in a language or a good prose style - none of these principles is exactly a revelation at this late date. Nevertheless, if it's true that people more often than not need to be reminded of essentials, Yagoda's book will serve a useful as well as entertaining purpose.