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<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><SPAN lang=EN>
<DIV>Hi, fellow word people. I wanted to salute David Crystal for his book <I><FONT face=Helvetica-Oblique>Think on My <BR>Words, Exploring Shakespeare's Language</I></FONT> <FONT face=Helvetica>(paperback, 2008) </FONT>--an exquisite <BR>treatise on the the <FONT face=Helvetica>bard's </FONT>stylistics<FONT face=Helvetica>, eloquence, vocabulary, location in and <BR>contribution to the development of Modern English. </FONT>In a wider sense it's a scholarly <BR>exposition of the grammatical,<FONT face=Helvetica> </FONT>phonetic/phononogical, punctuational, etc. <BR>development of<FONT face=Helvetica> Modern</FONT> English <FONT face=Helvetica>in general</FONT>, from the 1500's to <FONT face=Helvetica>present-</FONT>day English<FONT face=Helvetica>. <BR>This historical-linguistic approach makes the book truly absorbing. </DIV></FONT>
<DIV> Crystal <FONT face=Helvetica>deals with </FONT>Shakespeare<FONT face=Helvetica> and philology</FONT> per se, but his cross-referential <BR>treatment of other writers<FONT face=Helvetica>, regional accents,</FONT> and of American-British differences <BR><FONT face=Helvetica>(written and spoken) I also found riveting. And </FONT>h<FONT face=Helvetica>is use of statistics re-proves his <BR>bent for being "numerically-correct."</DIV></FONT>
<DIV>This is not a book review, or a publisher's write-up; I just wanted to offer lead on a </DIV>
<DIV>great read. His<FONT face=Helvetica> treatment of</FONT> <FONT face=Helvetica>the </FONT>"quantity myth"<FONT face=Helvetica> (vocabulary size),</FONT> <FONT face=Helvetica>"</FONT>invention myth"<FONT face=Helvetica> <BR>(coining quantity),</FONT> <FONT face=Helvetica>"</FONT>translation myth<FONT face=Helvetica>" (modernizing the text)</FONT>,<FONT face=Helvetica> </FONT>and "<FONT face=Helvetica>s</FONT>t<FONT face=Helvetica>yle </FONT>myth"<FONT face=Helvetica> <BR>(linguistic distinctiveness) of Shakespeare are enlightening. (David Crystal -- "...and <BR>insofar as there is something in the way he (Shakespeare) writes which we feel is <BR>distinctive, and which differentiates him from other writers, then we will continue to <BR>use it. But as soon as try to identify this style with reference to particular linguistic <BR>features, the notion starts to disintegrate.") <BR></FONT> I have a subjective difference with him on
his "translation myth" (modernizing), but <BR>his arguments <FONT face=Helvetica>about the merits of `<U>not</U> modernizing' </FONT>are well-thought-out.<FONT face=Helvetica> </FONT>After his <BR><I><FONT face=Helvetica-Oblique>Encyclopedia of The English Language</I></FONT>, I thought that that would be the end<FONT face=Helvetica> </FONT>of his <BR><FONT face=Helvetica>expository </FONT>masterpieces, but...... <FONT face=Helvetica>well......so much for that myth. <BR><BR>Scott Nelson</DIV></FONT></SPAN></td></tr></table><br>
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