BEN YAGODA

A spot on guide to how and why Americans have become so bloody keen on Britishisms for good or ill The British love to complain that words and phrases imported from America from French fries to Awesome man are destroying the English language But what about the influence going the other way Britishisms have been making their way into the American lexicon for more than 150 years but the process has accelerated since the turn of the twenty first century From acclaimed writer and language commentator Ben Yagoda Gobsmacked is a witty entertaining and enlightening account of how and why scores of British words and phrases such as one off go missing curate early days kerfuffle easy peasy and cheeky have been enthusiastically taken up by Yanks After tracing Britishisms that entered the American vocabulary in the nineteenth century and during the world wars Gobsmacked discusses the most used British terms in America today It features chapters on the American embrace of British insults and curses sports terms and words about food and drinks The book also explores the American adoption of British spellings pronunciations and grammar and cases where Americans have misconstrued British expressions for example changing can t be arsed to can t be asked or

From an acclaimed cultural critic, a narrative and social history of the Great American Songwriting era. Everybody knows and loves the American Songbook. But its a bit less widely understood that in about 1950, this stream of great songs more or less dried up. All of a sudden, what came over the radio wasnt Gershwin, Porter, and Berlin, but Come on-a My House and How Much Is That Doggie in the Window? Elvis and rock and roll arrived a few years later, and at that point the game was truly up. What happened, and why? In The B Side, acclaimed cultural historian Ben Yagoda answers those questions in a fascinating piece of detective work. Drawing on previously untapped archival sources and on scores of interviewsthe voices include Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb, Linda Ronstadt, and Herb Alpertthe book illuminates broad musical trends through a series of intertwined stories. Among them are the battle between ASCAP and Broadcast Music, Inc.; the revolution in jazz after World War II; the impact of radio and then television; and the bitter, decades-long feud between Mitch Miller and Frank Sinatra. The B Side is about taste, and the particular economics and culture of songwriting, and the potential of popular art for greatness and beauty. Its destined to become a classic of American musical history.

What do you get when you mix nine parts of speech, one great writer, and generous dashes of insight, humor, and irreverence? One phenomenally entertaining language book.In his waggish yet authoritative book, Ben Yagoda has managed to undo the dark work of legions of English teachers and libraries of dusty grammar texts. Not since School House Rock have adjectives, adverbs, articles, conjunctions, interjections, nouns, prepositions, pronouns, and verbs been explored with such infectious exuberance. Read If You Catch an Adjective, Kill It and:Learn how to write better with classic advice from writers such as Mark Twain (If you catch an adjective, kill it), Stephen King (I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs), and Gertrude Stein (Nouns . . . are completely not interesting). Marvel at how a single word can shift from adverb (I did okay), to adjective (It was an okay movie), to interjection (Okay!), to noun (I gave my okay), to verb (Who okayed this?), depending on its use. Avoid the pretentious preposition at, a favorite of real estate developers (e.g., The Shoppes at White Plains). Laugh when Yagoda says he shall call anyone a dork to the end of his days who insists on maintaining the distinction between shall and will. Read, and discover a book whose pop culture references, humorous asides, and bracing doses of discernment and common senseconvey Yagodas unique sense of the beauty, the joy, the artistry, and the fun of language.

From a critically acclaimed cultural and literary critic, a definitive history and analysis of the memoir.From Saint Augustine?s Confessions to Augusten Burroughs?s Running with Scissors, from Julius Caesar to Ulysses Grant, from Mark Twain to David Sedaris, the art of memoir has had a fascinating life, and deserves its own biography. Cultural and literary critic Ben Yagoda traces the memoir from its birth in early Christian writings and Roman generals? journals all the way up to the banner year of 2007, which saw memoirs from and about dogs, rock stars, bad dads, good dads, alternadads, waitresses, George Foreman, Iranian women, and a slew of other illustrious persons (and animals). In a time when memoir seems ubiquitous and is still highly controversial, Yagoda tackles the autobiography and memoir in all its forms and iterations. He discusses the fraudulent memoir and provides many examples from the past?and addresses the ramifications and consequences of these books. Spanning decades and nations, styles and subjects, he analyzes the hallmark memoirs of the Western tradition?Rousseau, Ben Franklin, Henry Adams, Gertrude Stein, Edward Gibbon, among others. Yagoda also describes historical trends, such as Native American captive memoirs, slave narratives, courtier dramas (where one had to pay to NOT be included in a courtesan?s memoir). Throughout, the idea of memory and truth, how we remember and how well we remember lives, is intimately explored.Yagodas elegant examination of memoir is at once a history of literature and taste, and an absorbing glimpse into what humans find interesting--one another.

Ben Yagodas How to Not Write Bad illustrates how we can all write better, more clearly, and for a wider readership.He offers advice on what he calls "not-writing-badly," which consists of the ability, first, to craft sentences that are correct in terms of spelling, diction (word choice), punctuation, and grammar, and that also display clarity, precision, and grace. Then he focuses on crafting whole paragraphswith attention to cadence, consistency of tone, sentence transitions, and paragraph length.In a fun, comprehensive guide, Yagoda lays out the simple steps we can all take to make our writing more effective, more interestingand just plain better.