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Bad English by Ammon Shea
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Bad English

A History of Linguistic Aggravation

$17.84

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Narrator Mike Chamberlain

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Length 7 hours 21 minutes
Language English
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English is a glorious mess of a language, cobbled together from a wide variety of sources and syntaxes, and changing over time with popular usage. Many of the words and usages we embrace as standard and correct today were at first considered slang, impolite, or just plain wrong.

Whether you consider yourself a stickler, a nitpicker, or a rule-breaker in the know, Bad English is sure to enlighten, enrage, and perhaps even inspire. Filled with historic and contemporary examples, the book chronicles the long and entertaining history of language mistakes, and features some of our most common words and phrases, including decimate, hopefully, enormity, that vs. which, enervate vs. energize, bemuse vs. amuse, literally vs. figuratively, ain't, irregardless, socialist, OMG, and stupider.

Lively, funny, and surprising, this is a book that will settle arguments among word lovers—and it's sure to start a few, too.

Add new author biography.

Mike Chamberlain is an actor and voice-over performer, as well as an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator. Along with animation and video game characters, Mike performs narration and voices promos for television. He lives with his wife and daughter in Southern California.

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Reviews

"On the playground of language, there is no more mischievous laddie than Ammon Shea." ---Roy Peter Clark, author of The Glamour of Grammar Expand reviews