Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words

It is no exaggeration to say that Anne Curzan's book about language usage gives new meaning to the word "engaging." Her colloquial style belies the erudition that informs every page, from start to finish. She combines her scholarship, training as a linguist, and years as an English professor with a light touch that makes reading her book a pure joy. Highly recommended for everyone who enjoys reading, speaking, writing and listening.

deep scholarship made accessible to just about anyone. Fun with her personal anecdotes, interesting with extensive history, inclusive with embrace of non-standard uses. My granddaughters (13 and 11) love it, too.

I have only read the first couple of chapters, but I heartily recommend this book to all grammandos and wordies out there! English is my second language, but I really enjoy how the author discusses specific issues with words in neat little chapters.

Such an enjoyable read that you don’t even realize how much you are learning along the way! A great choice for “wordies” and “grammandos” alike.

Overwhelming is how I would describe this book. It seems like the author took everything she ever learned about words and packed it into this book. I believe the information would have been useful if there wasn’t so much fluff associated with it.Thank you Crown publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview an advance copy of this book.

I wondered why so much grammar seems different since I learned it decades ago. This book is a fascinating look at why grammar and word usage are ever-changing. You might be surprised that some social media (or your) pet peeves are actually no longer considered to be incorrect. This isn’t a simple read. Curzan tries to interject humor into a dry subject, but I’ll use it as a reference book! If you love grammar and words, this is the book for you!

A highly engaging read with an extraordinary blend of erudition and thought-provoking fun on every page. Anne Curzan approaches language in an energetic and original way: "Hyphens live with em dashes in the Wild West of punctuation". In short, focussed chapters, she answers questions our inner "wordies" and "grammandos" have and then some, drawing on sources from Shakespeare to Calvin and Hobbes. She provides us with a "framework for thinking" -without being "judgy" (great word!)- about what is happening to language. All of this with signature clarity and kindness because, as she emphasises: "Debates about language are almost always about more than language". The powerful message, delivered with subtle impact, is that open-mindedness and understanding of language matter because "changing what people see and hear in language changes their experience of the world...[and can] keep people out or invite them in to new opportunities".

I'm a superfan of Curzan's "That's What They Say" on public radio and was eager to dive into her book, and you can truly just dive in anywhere you want but don't miss a single one of her lively, smart, fascinating chapters. The introduction to the book is heartwarming and sets the tone for an approach to language usage that is simultaneously erudite and full of humanity. One need not be a professor of linguistics to appreciate the way in which the book explains everything you wanted to know about language but were afraid to ask, and that's just it: Curzan pulls back the curtain and invites everyone to the linguistic table. Ultimately, and this is what I think she wants to have happened, I am even more curious about how we have been using, are using, and will continue to use the words with which we communicate with and bind ourselves to each other.