Auld Author – The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson – An essay by Leila

Bill Bryson has published a vast amount of books and might be as rich as a writer can get save for Stephen King, but I won’t hold it against him. I do not know if he has ever published fiction but I do enjoy his well written non-fiction. especially a book he wrote about Australia and today’s subject: The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got to Be That Way.

I first read it when it came out then foolishly lent it to someone and have not seen it since. But I bought another one and it is sitting beside me. Taking into consideration that thirty-five years have passed since I made the mistake of lending it to an acquaintance whom I knew would soon be moving to Arizona (as far south of here in the US as things get) should be all on me anyway.

We have all run into books of the similar theme. But what sets this apart is Bryson’s humorous style and his willingness to dig deeper into the subject than most authors of such fare are willing to do. This was written in the late eighties, long before internet searches, and I have a feeling that a lot of similar materials published today have been culled from the pages of this very book.

As far as the book goes, it is linear and goes far back into the deepest ago and asks prescient questions about the language’s future. As a young lass of thirty-one (call me a case of arrested development) my favorite chapter dealt with obscenities. But I was also pleased to learn that in Europe there is a nation that has four languages and none of those languages has a single word that means stop (they all rely on short combinations) and their stop signs are written in english and yet they do not have any more car wrecks than usual. This tale (whose precise details are omitted due to my laziness) was used to help illustrate the point that English is slowly becoming The World’s Language–and although that is still an ongoing work, it appears to be true; in the last forty years our language continues to assert itself. Personally speaking I do not care which language takes control, but it would be really nice if everyone could speak one common tongue, and still keep that of their home land.

There are all kinds of interesting facts in this book that make it a pleasure to read in any direction in spite of its linear layout. The chapter about names is particularly fascinating (although nothing can surpass the awesomenicity of profanity).

There are critics of what is called “scholastic light reading”–and I bet you anything that Bryson’s work is often centered in their crosshairs. I find that sort of thing snobbish and grossly unfair. Learning about entertaining things should not be gained via a dull, plodding presentation. Oh yes, the material should be zealously researched, but there should not be some kind of law that requires text books to be as dead and dry as a desert pinched loaf of Donkeyshit. If something teaches a person that “fuck” most likely comes from the old Finn word “fudder” then why get your undies in a bunch? Anyway, I suspect that such critics are people who cannot write in an entertaining fashion to save their lives.

I only meant to glance through Bryson’s book to refresh my memory (I had read it a second and third time, but the last was at least twenty years ago), but it appears I will be staying with it for the rest of the day. A book should do that, it should still appeal to you at different times of your life. And I am happy to state that is the case here.

Leila