You Say Potato: A Book About Accents
Written by Ben Crystal and David Crystal
Narrated by Ben Crystal, David Crystal, Hilton McRae and Jane Savage
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Some people say sconn, while others say schown.
He says bath, while she says bahth.
You say potayto. I say potahto
And-
-wait a second, no one says potahto. No one's ever said potahto.
Have they?
From reconstructing Shakespeare's accent to the rise and fall of Received Pronunciation, actor Ben Crystal and his linguist father David travel the world in search of the stories of spoken English.
Everyone has an accent, though many of us think we don't. We all have our likes and dislikes about the way other people speak, and everyone has something to say about 'correct' pronunciation. But how did all these accents come about, and why do people feel so strongly about them? Are regional accents dying out as English becomes a global language? And most importantly of all: what went wrong in Birmingham?
Witty, authoritative and jam-packed full of fascinating facts, You Say Potato is a celebration of the myriad ways in which the English language is spoken - and how our accents, in so many ways, speak louder than words.
Ben Crystal
Ben Crystal is an actor, producer, and writer. He played Hamlet in the first Original Pronunciation production of the play for 400 years with the Nevada Repertory Company, and curated the British Library's CD, Shakespeare's Original Pronunciation. He co-wrote Shakespeare's Words and The Shakespeare Miscellany with his father, David Crystal, and his first solo book, Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard was shortlisted for the 2010 Educational Writer of the Year Award. He has also written a series of introductions to the Bard's plays - Springboard Shakespeare - was published by Bloomsbury / Arden. He and his Shakespeare ensemble perform and give Shakespeare workshops around the world.
Related to You Say Potato
Related audiobooks
Let's Talk: How English Conversation Works Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5That's Not English: Britishisms, Americanisms, and What Our English Says About Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Making Sense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The History of English: The Biography of a Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gift of the Gab: How Eloquence Works Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Splendiferous Speech: How Early Americans Pioneered Their Own Brand of English Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glamour Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Changing Minds: How Aging Affects Language and How Language Affects Aging Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth About Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden History of Coined Words Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bagels, Bumf, and Buses: A Day in the Life of the English Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Language Unlimited: The Science Behind Our Most Creative Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips to Clean Up Your Writing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Have You Eaten Grandma?: Or, the Life-Saving Importance of Correct Punctuation, Grammar, and Good English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Language: The Basics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Origin of Names, Words and Everything in Between Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide To Language For Fun & Spite Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Dead Languages Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Do We Say That? 101 Idioms, Phrases, Sayings & Facts! A Brief History On Where They Come From! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lowdown: Improve Your Speech - British English: Level 2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Linguistics For You
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Origin of Names, Words and Everything in Between Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mastering Logical Fallacies: The Definitive Guide to Flawless Rhetoric and Bulletproof Logic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speed Reading: Learn to Read a 200+ Page Book in 1 Hour Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Talking Back, Talking Black: Truths About America's Lingua Franca Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bonjour Effect: The Secret Codes of French Conversation Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can't Think the Way We Do Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Dead Languages Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Kind of Creatures Are We? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Born To Kvetch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Invention: A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Don't Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth About Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What's Your Pronoun?: Beyond He and She Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Irony and Sarcasm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5F**k: An Irreverent History of the F-Word Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why Do We Say That? 101 Idioms, Phrases, Sayings & Facts! A Brief History On Where They Come From! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Talkin' To Me?: The Unruly History of New York English Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Language Warrior's Manifesto: How to Keep Our Languages Alive No Matter the Odds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for You Say Potato
6 ratings0 reviews