Don't Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth About Language
By: David Shariatmadari / Narrated By: Damian Lynch
Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
My “Gosh, I’m such an idiot” Listen for this year…
One thing I gotta tell ya about my sister: She’s smart, like, UBER (Sorry, my husband’s been using the word, and it’s kinda sorta stuck) SMART. Plus, she’s into a variety of intellectual input. She has her fanciful side; she has her technical side. Me? I’m a goober, but I doooo try!
I have to admit, however, that I was looking forward to Don’t Believe a Word as what writer isn’t interested in language? I dove right in, and the foreword is read by author Shariatmadari himself, is all tanked with his enthusiasm, keeps you excited. And then? The rest of the audiobook happens.
I dunno how much is the narration, how much is the written text.
Uhm… Both?
Narrator Damian Lynch is adequate, but some (A LOT) of the author’s enthusiasm is lost in his even keel performance. Most of the humor is lost as well, and when one comes to the drier sections, egads!
But maybe that’s just big ol’ goober me equating dry with exceedingly technical. I remember my first roommate in college was studying to be a speech therapist, and we had a grand old time with glottal stops; what’s funnier than a glottal stop? Nothing, turns out. All sorts of things are written about, some where the author tries for wry and fails miserably. Plosives? Not funny.
And by the time he started on a leeeeengthy discourse about the merits of Urdu vs. Korean? My eyes were rolling back up into my head. You want the meaning of words, perhaps? Well, it turns out that etymology is everything and nothing at the same time.
Whazaaaa?
The whole thing, which is supposed (I guess) to come off as an ode to this quirky and unpredictable thing we call Language, winds up sounding like the biggest inside joke imaginable. You have to know A LOT about mechanisms of mouth movement, plenty about historical societal relations, and the itty bitty that goes alongside the oh so massive (Details details details… until some huge concept is chucked out there),
I’m still very interested in language, but I think I’ll go more for the John McWhorter/Great Courses Route. He also tackles myths and lies about language, but in Great Courses bite-sized chunks that are more easy to ponder and digest. Plus he’s a trifle goofier which is waaaay more my wavelength. Yes, yes, yes, for that particular course one would be missing, say, freaking Urdu, but I do believe that’s a small price to pay for chuckles and for not wondering what all is being missed on Facebook whilst tryyyyying to pay attention.
Last year it was Secrets of Sleep Science that well and truly brought me to my knees, made me keenly aware that I was completely and unutterably a boob. Well 2020, with everything that’s happened thus far, just wouldn’t be complete if I couldn’t add that yessss, I’m an idiot.
If I must have the oh so technical, I MUST have the goofy and quirky and silly asides also…!
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