Far from the Madding Gerund - new book on Language Log

Language Log is a blogzine I've been recommending since the beginning of my own blogging life. Now I am delighted to tell you that a book has been published on it. Yours truly worked on it, as a matter of fact. It's really, really funny and smart.



WILLIAMS, JAMES & CO. PUBLISHES FAR FROM THE MADDING GERUND, BOOK VERSION OF POPULAR ONLINE LANGUAGE MAGAZINE

William, James & Co. presents Far from the Madding Gerund and Other Dispatches from Language Log, a book based on the popular online magazine Language Log. The 276-page paperback trade book has just been released.

Although written by professional linguists on topics like syntax and phonetics, Far from the Madding Gerund appeals to a general audience with its “exuberant, tart, and totally addictive” style (The Boston Globe).

The authors examine language-related items in the news, evolving patterns of everyday speech, and language choices of everyone from major political figures and celebrities to people having audible cell phone conversations in shopping malls. Often the authors’ musings on language meander through warm stories from their lives, such as learning the value of political pluralism among fiery young GI’s in 1969 Vietnam, and being moved at hearing Ray Charles sing America the Beautiful in Santa Cruz County just a month before he died. As the Chicago Tribune explained about Language Log, “What you won't find are rants about the sorry state of proper standard English in America. Linguists tend to be more interested in observing how words are used than in complaining about what they hear.” The book champions linguistic descriptivism for readers who needn’t know the term.

Far from the Madding Gerund contains 139 of the best posts from Language Log (www.languagelog.com), a popular online magazine written in Weblog format by professional linguists. Web and book content is mostly written by Geoffrey Pullum and Mark Liberman. Pullum is Professor of Linguistics and Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the University of California (The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, 2002); The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language, 1990. Mark Liberman is Trustees Professor of Phonetics in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania (The intonational system of English (Outstandings dissertations in linguistics). Additional contributors to the site include 14 other linguistics professors.

From the introduction of Far from the Madding Gerund:“As you read this book, you may (we hope) find yourself thinking, “I never knew that!” or “I always thought that was bad grammar!” or “Was that really the origin?” or “Did they really write that?”. And while these thoughts are occurring to you, it may be that you will come to see the English language somewhat differently on some points. You will have fun, but your opinions about language will shift. You might even begin to think you’d like to know a bit more about linguistics than you know right now” (–Mark Liberman and Geoffrey Pullum).