Made in America
An Informal History of the English Language in the United States
Ratings24
Average rating3.6
Bill Bryson turns away from the highways and byways of middle America, so hilariously depicted in his bestselling The Lost Continent, for a fast, exhilarating ride along the Route 66 of American language and popular culture.
In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land - explaining how a dusty desert hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up - as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.
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Great book to read in pieces.
There is no plot or timeline so you can read a few pages at any point and enjoy the high level overview of American history along with the origins of many words in English.
Well written, interesting and fun.
Another Discovery-Channel-in-a-book from Bryson. Fascinating tome of how American English has become the way it is today.
This book definitely isn't for everyone but for those who it's for (word and history nerds) it is really really for.
A book about how America added to the English language doubles as a history of the country, something blindingly obvious in retrospect. Every stage of Americas history mapped out by the words created during that period. Depressions and gold rushes, slavery and emancipation, desperation and invention, modesty and arrogance, innocence and cruelty, social freedoms and economic losses, you see how all played out in America and set the benchmark for the modern world. This book perfectly captures the wild, heady, inspirational years of Americas growth into the behemoth it is today.
And so many words created or grown there! Even many foreign words that have entered English parlance (rendezvous, tsunami, kindergarten, glitch, guru) found their entry through Ellis Island. Honestly by the end of the book it's hard to imagine saying a single sentence without having some influence from the new world.
