Amazon.com Review
"Junk English is the linguistic equivalent of junk food," says Ken Smith. "Ingest it long enough and your brain goes soft." Given the ubiquity of "junk English"--which includes pretentious, meaningless, euphemistic, and bloated language--we all likely suffer already from mushy minds. In Junk English, Smith uses real examples to illustrate 120 types of language abuse, including cheapened words (visionary, revolutionary), distraction modifiers (low, just, only), "fat-ass phrases," "free-for-all verbs," "jargon gridlock," "mirage words," "palsy-walsy pitches," "secret snob words," and "tiny type messages." If linguistic abuses were ticketable offenses, Officer Smith would fill his quota before he reached the second paragraph. While the greatest perpetrators of junk English may be business and advertising folk, we're all guilty. So take this as a reminder to say what you mean, and mean what you say, and leave the battlefield language and spiked clichés behind. --Jane Steinberg
From Library Journal
As Smith (Mental Hygiene) here argues, our language has become pliable and flabby, filled with sloppy grammar, pretentious phrases, and, above all, loudness. "Junk English" is most often a trick we play on ourselves to make the unremarkable seem important. The result is "Edmund Burke's tyranny of the multitude merged with George Orwell's Newspeak, a world of humbug in which the more we read and hear, the less we know." This point is well made in an abundance of succinct examples, alphabetically arranged, which reveal the misuse of words, the overemphasis on euphemisms, the "verbalizing of perfectly good nouns," and other grammatical errors. Smith readily admits that what results is his own judgmental collection of observations, not a text of grammar or style. The errors are blatant and familiar, representing Smith's heightened sensitivity to poor English as found in newspapers and magazines, radio and TV, advertisements and editorials, as well as everyday life. Compact in size, reasonably priced, and nicely updating Richard P. Lederer's Fractured English (Pocket, 1996), this is highly recommended for all libraries and could be considered essential reading in English classes. Dale Farris, Groves, TX
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Junk English" is terrific ... lively, funny, and impeccably right-minded ... takes mighty whacks in all the right places.... -- The Washington Post, November 29, 2001
...streamlined, almost a thesaurus of sloppy usage ... deserves a place on the desk of any writer or editor. -- Minneapolis Star & Tribune, November 4, 2001
An admirably cranky little book ... refreshingly judgmental ... will make you laugh, and you'll never use "effort" as a verb again. -- Forbes FYI, November 12, 2001
Compact ... reasonably priced ... highly recommended for all libraries and could be considered essential reading in English classes. -- Library Journal, November 15, 2001
If Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" were updated ... it might look like "Junk English." Quirky ... will delight language purists. -- Publisher's Weekly, November 16, 2001
