Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, & You Guys Talk
Josh Katz (New York Times)
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
203p.
25USD
I was eagerly awaiting the delivery of this book, as I had enthusiastically dove through the original charts of the various American dialects when they were put on the internet by Mr. Katz, originally on the New York Times. They spread like wildfire through the web, & I believe that is how I was exposed to them, on the website Business Insider. While this book adds additional material to the charts as they were posted, I would not say this is an ‘essential’ purchase, even for those of us obsessed with the language & local dialect. The saving grace is the low price, which comes in at least 20 dollars less than coffee-table-type books usually are.
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| The General North/South Division. Believe it or not, my paternal grandparents were from the region of PA where 'Youse' is used. I heard it sometimes growing up. |
I got my hardcover copy hot off the press, and I gobbled the book greedily in a night. That being said, I don’t know how often I will find it necessary to revisit said book in the future. It would certainly do well to furnish the coffee-table in an apartment or home, & will surely entertain guests long enough for you to serve them etc.. but I think I would recommend either renting the book at a library, or simply just looking up the charts as they are online. It is not that this book is necessarily bad -- it certainly is not-- it just is that a majority of the content of the book was available online already, and so even this low price does not need to be justified.
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| Da fuq? |
Here is what the book does offer-- wonderful, glossy, beautiful illustrations with text that illuminates the various findings, including information about the actual surveys conducted to discover the dialect of Americans. In addition to the maps & the blurbs, there are pages dedicated to the most peculiar of dialects in the United States titled ‘how to pretend you are from ___’, which are fun to read.
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| One of the anomalous areas. 'Grinder' is quite funny for those of us 'in the know'. |
What this reveals about American English is quite surprising: that the dialect/regional variant is changing so rapidly that it is possible to chart changes in expression decade-by-decade and several gaps have opened up from one generation to the next. That being said, this very new book *will* be outdated & a relic of our decade in just a few years. The survey that forms the basis of “Speaking American”, we are informed, was carried out in the fall of 2013. In “Speaking American” via charts and text, we learn that expressions move eastward (that is the general direction) and make much progress in this effort to make the changes noticeable each decade. So in simply 6 years this book will be a relic! Other interesting facts about this book are how resolutely southern Florida is in line with both California & less-so to New York City (as we know, New York City & the various boroughs have much of their own dialect that stubbornly persists). Another main demographic and sociological fact to be gleaned from these maps is that there are 3 main divisions in the United States that are reflected in American English (and this is probably reflected in culture as well as perhaps even politics)-- the independence of the three cosmopolitan centers (California, Southern Florida, & the Atlantic seaboard from Maine down through New York City reaching the lowest border in Washington DC), the general movement of expressions eastward (expressions that originate in California as a rule move eastward, moreso each decade), and finally the resistance of Dixie to California movements, as well as the high number of expressions that it has exclusively. In the United States, the south truly is a distinct linguistic area, as well as a distinct culture, & that does not necessarily change by decade. The results on the south may be the only part of this book that is still accurate in half a decade.
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| Bubbler. Oh bubbler. Believe it or not, this word is in reference to what is known as a 'water fountain' in the standard dialect. 'Bubbler' disturbed me so from the very first time I saw this, for quite obvious reasons. If the water coming out is 'bubbling'.....uh, you have a problem. |
