(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

For word nerds and grammar geeks, an illustrated guide to the most commonly mispronounced words, along with their correct pronunciations and pithy forays into their fascinating etymologies and histories of use and misuse.
With wit and good humor, this handy little book not only saves us from sticky linguistic situations but also provides fascinating cocktail-party-ready anecdotes. Entries reveal how to pronounce boatswain like an old salt on the deck of a ship, trompe l'oeil like a bona fide art expert, and haricot vert like a foodie, while arming us with the knowledge of why certain words are correctly pronounced the "slangy" way (they came about before dictionaries), what stalks of grain have to do with pronunciation, and more. With bonus sidebars like "How to Sound like a Seasoned Traveler" and "How to Sound Cultured," readers will be able to speak about foreign foods and places, fashion, philosophy, and literature with authority.

I consider myself a bit of a word-guy, I enjoy learning about words and language, I like a bit of a laugh. So this book should have been a hands-down success with me.

It wasn't.

Why? A few things, but mostly it was the fact that I couldn't force myself to read page after page of supposedly humorous history of words and their mispronunciation. The style of humour is funny for a few pages - and then it gets boring pretty quickly.

And then the choices of words - "anyway" doesn't have an 's' on the end, don't you know? Yes, I did. And so does pretty much everyone in the entire English speaking world. And there are many other example (Wednesday, theatre) where it felt like the authors were looking for filler to get this up to a somewhat respectable 200 pages.

I think this would have been a far more interesting with less words and more history. That would have really got me - but then, maybe not, if the writing style was the same.


Paul
ARH