publisher for the False Etymology Book

[Wendalyn Nichols]

Distributed to libraries, yes; carry more weight with journalists, no. I
spent long enough in management in commercial publishing operations to be
able to say with confidence that journalists pay scant attention to
scholarly publications. You need buzz and hype for journalists to pay
attention to ANY book, let alone one about language, and once you're in the
commercial world, you're competing with pop language writers like Bill
Bryson. You need a hook, something to make it compelling and funny while
still retaining its solid scholarship. You'll get more readers that way,
but you might feel it's not a direction you want to go in. Safire would
plug the book, sure, but I've had direct experience of that not always
making much of a difference (based on sales tracking of books before and
after they were plugged in his column).

Wendalyn Nichols

At 12:31 PM 3/11/03 -0500, you wrote:
>I'm glad to see that Frank likes the idea, and that he thinks that it would
>be commercially viable. I have my own biases, of course, but it seems to me
>that if the book were published as a scholarly mongraph (i.e, as a
>PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY number) it would carry more
>weight with the world of journalists than something that seemed designed
>primarily to make money. And as a PADS volume it would also be instantly
>distributed to all the major libraries in the world, as well as to the most
>important of the journalistic opinion-makers (Safire, whatever you may think
>about him, generally is meticulous about researching traditional scholarly
>materials, if not letters to the editor and list-serve opinions).
>
>
>In a message dated 3/11/03 5:39:33 AM, abatefr at EARTHLINK.NET writes:
>
>
><BLOCKQUOTE CITE STYLE="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px>
>What Larry H says below in response to Barry P's lament is right on.  A book
> > skewering false etyms would help.  It would NOT stop people -- even some
> > smart and fairly well-informed people -- from repeating etymythologies.
> > That is a vain hope.  They will continue to appear, and in "major" sources,
> > forever.  If the NYT (now) prints typos and various language gaffes nearly
> > every day, then there is little reason to imagine that false etyms will
> > stop
> > appearing in print, there or elsewhere.  Ignorance of etymology knows no
> > bounds, and practically nobody cares about it, esp. if the etymythology
> > makes a good story and fills some lines.
> >
> > The ideal false-etymology book would include much of Barry's original
> > research, with a great deal from Fred S, too, and would be edited by the
> > likes of Jerry Cohen.  It would be published, ideally, by a major dict
> > publisher.  It would be mentioned, ideally, after it came out, by Safire in
> > his "Gifts of Gab" column, which runs every Dec, before the holiday
> > shopping
> > rush.  It would then sell a few thousand copies (if decently promoted,
> > beyond sending Safire a copy), and thereafter linger on some bookstore
> > shelves for years, selling in dribs and drabs.  It would then quietly be
> > pulled out of print, and die peacefully, remaining in evidence only on
> > library shelves.
> >
> > Sorry, but I am in cynical mode today.
> >
> > Frank Abate
> >
> >