Wordstruck!: The Fun and Fascination of Language

by Susanna Janssen

Overview

Do languages and cultures fascinate you? Do you love words?

Welcome to Susanna Janssen’s wondrous world of words.

Wordstruck! will entertain you with a wealth of humorous and insightful reflections on language and cultures. Dive in anywhere and delve into everything from cockney slang to terms of endearment around the world; from the genius of Shakespeare to foreign translations gone riotously bad; from why we say “hello” when answering the phone to why there are several hundred Arabic words in our language.

Discover fascinating word origins, fall in love with metaphor and malapropisms, learn how to spot liars through their words, uncover the secrets to building the brain like a muscle, and find out what really goes on behind foreign language classroom doors.

Have a love affair with the lexicon—Let Wordstruck! feed your brain, warm your heart, and tickle your funny bone.

Wordstruck! is the 2017 winner of three national awards including First place in the Humor category of the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780998304830
Publisher:	Susan Janssen
Publication date:	06/05/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	3 MB

Table of Contents

Contents

 

CHAPTER ONE

Life and Language in the USA

The Tower of Scrabble Babel

You Say Goodbye and I Say Hello

The US and “Them” View of the World

Minding the Metaphor, Part I

Minding the Metaphor, Part II

Let’s Play the Dictionary Game!

Pants on Fire

How Are You Fixed for Time and Money

 

CHAPTER TWO

Whence These Words

The Herd Mentality

Shakespeare: The Legacy in His Lines, Part I

Shakespeare: The Legacy in His Lines, Part II

On the Trail of Word Origins, Part I

On the Trail of Word Origins, Part II

On the Trail of Word Origins, Part III

The Familiarity of Foreign

The Scholar’s Ink and the Martyr’s Blood

 

CHAPTER THREE

Grammar Grievances, Malaprop Muddles, and Pronunciation Pickles

Inconstant Consonant and Sudden Vowel Movements

Grammurder in the First Degree

Grammurder in the Second Degree

The Law of Schwa

The Abdominal Snowman on the Cal-Can Highway

Into the Prepositional Fray

 

CHAPTER FOUR

Windows on the World

It’s All Bubble and Squeak to Me

Lost (but Not Forgotten) in Translation

We Don’t Have a Word for It, Part I

We Don’t Have a Word for It, Part II

News from the World of Words

Speaking of Tongues

Pigments of our Imagination

Between the Sword and the Wall

The Language Police

Rum and Revolution, Part I

Rum and Revolution, Part II

 

CHAPTER FIVE

The Wonders of the Bilingual Brain 

Riding the Silver Tsunami

The Best Brain Elixir

The Blooming Brain

The Tongue May Stumble, But the Brain Purrs

The Job Seeker’s Competitive Edge

 

CHAPTER SIX

A Life in Words

Make Love Not War

Don the Noose for Biscuits

All About Me, the Sequel

All About Me, Prequel I

All About Me, Prequel II

Ez Dakite Euskaraz Hitz Egiten Duzu?

The Cure by Feeding of Earworms

A Girl (Not) Named Sue

Behind Closed Classroom Doors, Part I

Behind Closed Classroom Doors, Part II

Behind Closed Classroom Doors, Part III

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

Marking Moments in the Year

High Notes on Highway 99

May Your Days Be Merry and Bright

Have a Feliz Navidad and a Diglot New Year

And the Word of the Year is…

“Reach Out” and “Open Your Kimono”: A Lexical Review of 2015

The Secret to Everything, Part I

The Secret to Everything, Part II

Around the World in Cupid’s Quiver

Mary and the Merry Month of May

The Yodeling Dutchman: A Father’s Day Tribute

Editorial Reviews

Quirky, Fun--a Great Linguistic Adventure!

Susanna Janssen packs this delightful book with insights and anecdotes. The author is clearly an experienced traveler, an adept language professor, and a wry observer of life. Her sense of humor sparkles on every page. If you're the kind of person who encounters a quirky expression or an odd custom and thinks, "Hm, I wonder where that comes from?" then you will love this book. Each chapter takes you on a fresh linguistic adventure. Even if you're not passionate about words, Janssen may convert you. Be ready to feel curiosity and intrigue at each sitting. --Jody Gehrman

Susanna has a real way with words! We're fortunate that she decided to share her whimsical mastery of the English language, among others, with all of us ... A must read for those who enjoy a good bit of word play, clever banter, and just good old fashioned mind candy! --Bob Mandel

I was fascinated by this book. It is packed with wit and insight. In it I found realistic advice on how to learn a foreign language; strange word origins; the name and examples of the "uh" sound in many English words; how to cure "earworms"; the influence of Shakespeare on modern English; and dozens of other intriguing topics. --David Sammel

If you love words and language, you'll find this book fascinating. Well written and amusing to boot, the book is full of anecdotes and funny bits. I really love this book! --Laura S

Not only informative but fun to read with great stories used as examples: I finished reading Wordstruck and was very impressed. Not only informative but fun to read with great stories used as examples. The way the author transitioned from chapter to chapter was brilliant. I think the book should be a required read for first year college English classes as well as any foreign language class. Inspiring for those who think they just don't have it. --Amazon Customer

From the Publisher

2018-07-14

A collection of newspaper columns muses on the eccentricities of English and other languages.

In this second edition of her volume of Bill Bryson-esque columns, Janssen draws on decades of teaching and learning languages to engage in a lighthearted exploration of grammar, etymology, family history, cultural exchange, and anything else that interests her. The columns, arranged thematically, deal primarily with the author's lifelong fascination with languages—her native English, the Spanish she studied and taught, her parents' Dutch and Italian—and her enthusiasm for sharing them with others. Many address the benefits, both financial and personal, of studying multiple languages, and the columns on grammar are refreshingly un-crotchety (enthusiastically endorsing, for instance, the singular they). Janssen is a knowledgeable teacher and enthusiastic student, but she is also charmingly self-deprecatory: "Keyboarding is not the only type of boarding at which I have failed. I've also flopped (literally, onto concrete and into ice banks) at skateboarding and snowboarding." Although the book does not rely heavily on research citations, the information presented is solid and avoids the unsubstantiated folk etymologies that too often attract amateur linguists. Janssen's insights into the nature of language are strengthened by her familiarity with several beyond her native tongue, allowing her to explore the cultural implications of hygge and schadenfreude as well as the value of the Spanish word "estadounidenses," a concise way to describe U.S. citizens while allowing "American" to apply to the rest of the hemisphere. Columns celebrating the tradition/marketing ploy of naming a "word of the year" are particularly delightful ("There is no need to suffer the lengthy awkwardness of writing on your Christmas wish list, ‘I want one of those collapsible monopods to attach to my camera or cell phone for better selfies,' when you can just say, ‘Dear Santa, please bring me a selfie stick!' "). Readers in search of engaging, entertaining, and occasionally thought-provoking essays should enjoy the pieces that make up this collection.

A language enthusiast offers a compilation of amusing and singular columns.

Kirkus Reviews