First Post

Here is my own special place to ponder my books and quote my favorite passages from them. I have accumulated 1500 books – mostly at thrift stores and the HPB clearance shelf. I have not been able to read too many of them because of school, but I yearn to read them all; right now! I look longingly at the shelves, jealous of the interesting stories and information that they hold. That is probably the reason I am currently reading many of them at once. I try to narrow it down, but then I spot another I just want to read so badly. Today for example, I ignored Gabaldon (A breath of Snow in Ashes), Rowling (#5), Pollan (Botany of Desire), and More Tales to Tremble by (all sitting on my bedside table), so I could pick up and start fresh at page one of Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English by John McWhorter. This particular book probably caught my eye because I just finished the History of English course for my MA. I brought it down with me while I cooked dinner so I would have something to read while the pasta boiled. Already by page 16 I can see it will be adding a new dimension to what I learned in class.

The main argument of this book seems to be that historical linguists are wrong when they say Celtic had no grammatical influence on English. He argues that do insertion and the use of progressive as present tense (I am writing) comes from Celtic (Welsh and Cornish).

He doesn’t like that history of English is explained in terms of vocabulary only (I just wrote a big essay on the influence that different groups had on English vocabulary). He writes:

“Yet my impatience with the word fetish of typical popular treatments of the History of English is based in the fact that I happen to be a linguist. Etymology is, in fact, but one tiny corner of what modern linguistic science involves, and linguists are not formally trained in it. Any of us sought for public comment are familiar with the public’s understandable expectation that to be a linguist is to carry thousands of etymologies in one’s head, when in fact, on any given question as to where a word comes from , we usually have to go searching in a dictionary like anyone else. Linguists are more interested in how the words are put together, and how the way they are put together now is different from how they were put together in the past, and why.”

I like this quote because it reminded me of the mistaken notions people have about linguists and ESL teachers. The most common one I encounter is, “You must speak a lot of languages!” For some reason people think that I have to be fluent in a language in order to study theories about human language ability, or that I have to know someone’s native language in order to teach them English.

This book is interesting so far, and, like I mentioned, fitting for this moment in my life, but he seems a little pompous and extreme. For me, extreme language is a red flag. He does seem to have a solid argument so far, but I’ll wait and see for final judgment.

I picked up a book called More Tales to Tremble By at a thrift store. It is a collection of horror stories edited by Stephen Sutton and published in 1968. It has this cool retro cover and was cheap, so I bought it. I have a small collection of horror story compilations. I picked it up as I went to bed the other night (as my other books glared at me). The first story, The Red Lodge, was published in 1923 by H. Russell Wakefield. It was a creepy story about a haunted house that the narrator, his wife, 6-year-old son, and servants rented for the summer. They ended up staying just a few nights. One paragraph jumped out at me:

“There was nothing wrong with the house, of course, but I am a bit psychic, and I always know the mood or character of a house. One welcomes you with the tail-writhing enthusiasm of a really nice dog, makes you at home and at your ease at once. Others are sullen, watchful, hostile, with things to hide. They make you feel as though you’ve obtruded yourself into some curious affairs which are none of your business. I had never encountered so hostile, aloof, and secretive a living place as the Red Lodge seemed when I first encountered it.”

Once in a while an author just states an idea in such plain simple terms. These are ideas that have waded around in my mind, but was never able to state them as clear concise things.  I love it when I read something and it is the first time I’ve seen it stated so clearly. It doesn’t need to be deep or overly creative, just simply stated.

By the way, I am not a huge horror fan. I read tons of King years back. I even threw ‘Salem’s Lot across the room one night. Lately, I haven’t read any, and I never watch horror movies. I just get too creeped out when I’m alone and start imagining things. My feelings as I picked up this book were that old stories like these cannot possibly be scary. I was wrong; I was sufficiently freaked out as to have weird dreams about funerals and dead bodies and stuff. So lovely!