Review: A Little Book of Language

"Grammar is the way we make sense of words. Without grammar, there's only vagueness."

Months ago I heard an interview on NPR with David Crystal, linguist and author of a new book about language written for young adults. Since then I have been looking forward to reading A Little Book of Language.

I heard the interview rebroadcast just before the book came into the library for me. Since I had just listened to David Crystal speak with his very proper British accent, I could hear his voice as I read his book. Which I found delightful, though not everyone would feel the same way.

Since I studied English and grammar in graduate school, this book was written a little simply for me. But I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I think most people could learn something from it. The chapters are short and the explanations are written in plain English.

If I taught high school English, I would certainly try to incorporate at least parts of this book into my lesson plans. Crystal thinks the study of language is vitally important for young people today--he speaks to them but not down to them. He is fascinated (rather than appalled like many older generations) by the language of texting, positing that you have to be a good speller to be a good texter because you have to know what letters are there before you can effectively leave them out. (I think that's the difference between a grammarian and a linguist--a grammarian is concerned with proper language, a linguist is just fascinated by language and how it evolves.)

If you have any interest in language, you should read this book. If I were your teacher, I would assign you to read this book.