John R. Edwards

Introductory books are difficult. A lot of this uses subfield jargon to explain stuff that you'd already know if you knew the jargon. In addition several chapters seem much more focused on criticising the views of other academics rather than explaining charitably or putting forward an alternative perspective. This was particularly noticeable around language survival and revitalisation efforts - the author seemed very sniffy and dismissive about it.

So concise. So dense. Unpacking this means that it is *not* a quick, as in short, read. (I think I may have had a similar complaint about a different "very short introduction" in the series.) However, it also means that it is crammed full of quotable bits that, unfortunately, I don't have the time to transcribe here. For example, two translations of Beowulf, as excerpted, imply the themes of the tale will be very different, as one refers to, eg, Spear-Danes and the other to folk-kings. show more

Interesting/clever design choices. For example, the lines are not right-justified. And the chapter title and book title, usually shown in the top margin, are on the outside margin, which seems to me to somehow save space and increase legibility (and look nifty).

I 'read' the whole book, but I didn't study it, and don't think that I'll remember much that's new to me... and some of this I already knew from elsewhere. So, I can't rate... but, bottom line, I can't particularly recommend.

Bookdarts:

"... The central characteristic of language is the capacity for storytelling, for hiding rather than revealing, for fiction and falsehood."

" Mexican Americans who have 'migrated' to English have been labeled vendidos, sellouts...,"

A double negative equals a positive, right, so, does a double positive exist and does it equal a negative? Yeah right!

"A reviewer of [Harold] Garfinkel's 'seminal' text succinctly observed that ethnomethodology involved an extraordinarily high ratio of reading time to information transfer." (Um, that's true of this book, too, imo.)

"... correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets." [a:George Eliot|173|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1596202587p2/173.jpg], in [b:Middlemarch|19089|Middlemarch|George Eliot|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568307771l/19089._SY75_.jpg|1461747], as said by 'Fred.' show less