Such a treat: 21 short essays addressing common linguistic misunderstandings, misapprehensions and misbeliefs. Everything you thought you knew about languages (yours and others) is wrong and now we know why. And so entertainingly presented! This book costs so little and is so filled with useful information in so few pages that there's no excuse for not learning what you shouldn't believe about words, and why. ( )

Mildly informative and mildly entertaining book about some widely held language myths. Overall it takes aim at the premise that there are permanent rules for a language (the prescriptive approach) but this isn't exactly new news. Language mavens, however, will enjoy it. ( )

A great little book doing away with misconceptions most people have about language. Since it's a collection of essays, there is variation in style and quality, but overall it's very good. The book could have done with tighter editing, however. ( )

This book has a good heart, and a few really solid essays--Dennis Preston (funny guy, incidentally) on prestige ranking of American accents and JK Chambers on TV's non-effect on language change (the reason I bought it originally, and while a little offended that a certain nameless someone referred me to the shibboleths book to prove the point, I am also convinced). Some of the others are definitely kindergarten, and I don't mean for language scholars, but surely even the gen-pub doesn't needto be told that some languages aren't intrinsically "harder" or "more expressive" or "faster" or "more primitive" than others, and that language change isn't language decline? Then I think about how quickly I can come up with five people who have said just the opposite on one of these matters in the last six weeks, and how stubborn they were, and I'm like "oh yeah." So there is definitely a place for this book, even if I suspect most of the prescriptivists and cavilers will require more convincing than it provides. And it's a quick read. ( )

Each chapter is an essay which examines a common language myth. (E.g.: Appalachian English is Shakespeare's English, some languages are more logical than others, words shouldn't change meaning, etc.) An excellent resource for anyone who wants to get rid of their own language misconceptions or learn to defend against the miconceptions of others. ( )