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Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language
From bloopers and blunders to Signs of the Times to Mixed Up Metaphors...from Two-Headed Headlines to Mangling Modifiers, Anguished English is a treasury of assaults upon our common language.
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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About the author
Richard Lederer
89 books65 followersRichard Lederer is the author of more than 35 books about language, history, and humor, including his best-selling Anguished English series and his current book, The Gift of Age. He has been profiled in magazines as diverse as The New Yorker, People, and the National Enquirer and frequently appears on radio as a commentator on language. He has been named International Punster of the Year and Toastmasters International's Golden Gavel winner.
He is the father of author and poet Katy Lederer and poker players Howard Lederer and Annie Duke.
He is the father of author and poet Katy Lederer and poker players Howard Lederer and Annie Duke.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 182 reviews
February 1, 2015
I have learned so much from this book. Most importantly, I've learned that what I thought was a regional dialect of Northeastern Pennsylvania called Heynabonics is actually a nation-wide sub-language called "Slurvian."
I think this means that I'm bi-lingual now.
This was a cute, though disturbing, read. I laughed until I cried in the beginning section, reading through students' essays and seeing their mutilation of facts, but towards the middle of the book, it just kind of lost me. Yes, there were subject/verb disagreements, unintentional paraprosdokians, misplaced modifiers, and dangling participles but often I just didn't find the examples all that funny. And some of them, despite all disclaimers to the contrary, seemed faked. Or slightly modified to increase the irony and make them funnier, at the very least.
After about the 1/3 mark, I think I smiled and maybe chuckled a few times, but the uncontrollable laughter that I was promised, and which I experienced in the beginning, just didn't carry through.
Still, this was a quick read, and most of it was amusing even if I didn't spend the entire book in tears of laughter, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
I think this means that I'm bi-lingual now.
This was a cute, though disturbing, read. I laughed until I cried in the beginning section, reading through students' essays and seeing their mutilation of facts, but towards the middle of the book, it just kind of lost me. Yes, there were subject/verb disagreements, unintentional paraprosdokians, misplaced modifiers, and dangling participles but often I just didn't find the examples all that funny. And some of them, despite all disclaimers to the contrary, seemed faked. Or slightly modified to increase the irony and make them funnier, at the very least.
After about the 1/3 mark, I think I smiled and maybe chuckled a few times, but the uncontrollable laughter that I was promised, and which I experienced in the beginning, just didn't carry through.
Still, this was a quick read, and most of it was amusing even if I didn't spend the entire book in tears of laughter, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
March 5, 2021
While the featured language usage gaffes (and especially the oh so hilarious history of the world according to collected student bloopers) are indeed both fun and entertainingly diverting, I have also always found with the majority of tomes presenting collected tidbits of accidentally and inadvertently funny vocabulary and grammar/stylistic mistakes, Richard Lederer's Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language also does tend to wear a bit thin the more examples one reads (namely that it simply can and does become somewhat tedious and almost too painfully and gratingly funny to be served a continuous platter, a never ceasing and ending barrage of grammar mistakes, wrong vocabulary usage and mixed metaphors).
And thus, I usually and generally tend to read Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language in small bits and pieces whenever I need a laugh and/or a pick-me-up (for example, I often peruse the "Student Blooper" section during and after painful and frustrating exam and assignment marking sessions). Three solid stars, and definitely recommended, although aside from my suggestion of reading Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language in smaller increments, potential readers should also be aware and know that even in educational settings, it is actually and even generally not ONLY students and their parents, but ALSO and at least sometimes teachers and professors who can and do make humorous language based gaffes and faux pas, a salient truth and fact that I for one absolutely wish author and compiler Richard Lederer had equally considered and accepted, as it would have been both entertaining and also increasingly fair and justified for him to have shown both student/parent and teacher/professor based educational setting language usage mistakes (and yes, I do know and realise that Richard Lederer also presents laugh-out-loud hilarious vocabulary, grammar and stylistic gaffes from courtroom, church and newspaper settings, but it does still rile me a trifle that generally ALL of the educational bloopers presented in Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language are student or parent based in origin, that there are no professorial or teacher language missteps featured, and believe me, and from painful and funny personal experience, I may add, such bloopers can and do indeed and in fact happen).
And thus, I usually and generally tend to read Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language in small bits and pieces whenever I need a laugh and/or a pick-me-up (for example, I often peruse the "Student Blooper" section during and after painful and frustrating exam and assignment marking sessions). Three solid stars, and definitely recommended, although aside from my suggestion of reading Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language in smaller increments, potential readers should also be aware and know that even in educational settings, it is actually and even generally not ONLY students and their parents, but ALSO and at least sometimes teachers and professors who can and do make humorous language based gaffes and faux pas, a salient truth and fact that I for one absolutely wish author and compiler Richard Lederer had equally considered and accepted, as it would have been both entertaining and also increasingly fair and justified for him to have shown both student/parent and teacher/professor based educational setting language usage mistakes (and yes, I do know and realise that Richard Lederer also presents laugh-out-loud hilarious vocabulary, grammar and stylistic gaffes from courtroom, church and newspaper settings, but it does still rile me a trifle that generally ALL of the educational bloopers presented in Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language are student or parent based in origin, that there are no professorial or teacher language missteps featured, and believe me, and from painful and funny personal experience, I may add, such bloopers can and do indeed and in fact happen).
June 6, 2017
As a teacher, I began to gather linguistic jewels many years ago, mainly from my students' compositions and tests, but sometimes from media or overheard conversations in the street.
I intended, just like Richard Lederer, to make someday a book out of them, but I never imagined this book as a mere anthology – at the end of the day, how long can you laugh while reading page after page of jokes? How many spoons of honey can you eat before becoming sick? In other words, the real challenge is to seek a certain approach, either stylistic, philosophic and/ or linguistic, in order to organize the material.
These are my two main complaints regarding Anguished English: the careless organization of the contents (in spite of its chapters and subchapters, which could have been regrouped more efficiently to avoid repetition anyway) and the hybrid character: it could have been either an anthology or a linguistic study but it’s both and finally neither.
However, it has wonderful potential, as one of the most interesting chapters, The World According to Student Bloopers demonstrates, in which the author combines creativity and a wicked sense of humor to rewrite history blooper way, from Bible times, with its really weird family habits (“Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines”), to Antiquity with its equally strange architectonic features (“The Greek invented three kinds of columns – Corinthian, Ironic and Dork”), passing by Middle Ages, “when everyone was middle aged” and “People contracted the blue bonnet plague, which caused them to grow boobs on their necks”, then stressing that some otherwise famous writers failed the American dream (“Shakespeare never made much money and is famous only because of his plays”), giving some comforting information (“Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead”) or cleverly explaining some obscure sayings (“The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West”) until finally clarifying the place and spelling and role of some names in modern era (“Madman Curie discovered Radio and Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers”).
Unfortunately, the following chapters are only a selection of quotes with no comment whatsoever, and how I would have liked to cogitate a little about how sometimes the omission of a word helps to highlight an universal truth (“Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father’s fault.”), or how the satisfaction of a work well done exceeds the fear of punishment, like in this driver’s statement: “The pedestrian ran for the pavement, but I got him”, or how the journalists’ love for truth is greater than any political correctness, like in this headline: “CHILD’S DEATH RUINS COUPLE’S HOLIDAY”, or how sometimes you can be cured with the most unexpected remedy (“Gene Autry is better after being kicked by a horse”)
The last two chapters are more interesting, with their linguistic approach. I didn't know the term malapropism had another origin (from Richard Sheridan’s character, Mrs. Malaprop) apart from the obvious French one. The examples are funny, too (“Poe’s romance with Mrs. Stanard was purely plutonic”; “His mother got it all on film for prosperity”), and the bienapropisms (malapropisms that “leap across the chasm of absurdity and land on the side of the truth”), another name for eggcorns, in my opinion, even better: "I ate in a restaurant where the food was abdominal"; "Apartheid is a pigment of the imagination"
Overall, a funny book with much potential in becoming really interesting. But it is never too late, isn’t it? After all, people badly need to be reminded there is always someone who can help them, someone like the author of the following generous offer: "Illiterate? Write today for free help!"
I couldn't finish my review without some other funny quotes.
From students’ papers:
From journals’ headlines:
From ads:
And last but not least, from translations:
I intended, just like Richard Lederer, to make someday a book out of them, but I never imagined this book as a mere anthology – at the end of the day, how long can you laugh while reading page after page of jokes? How many spoons of honey can you eat before becoming sick? In other words, the real challenge is to seek a certain approach, either stylistic, philosophic and/ or linguistic, in order to organize the material.
These are my two main complaints regarding Anguished English: the careless organization of the contents (in spite of its chapters and subchapters, which could have been regrouped more efficiently to avoid repetition anyway) and the hybrid character: it could have been either an anthology or a linguistic study but it’s both and finally neither.
However, it has wonderful potential, as one of the most interesting chapters, The World According to Student Bloopers demonstrates, in which the author combines creativity and a wicked sense of humor to rewrite history blooper way, from Bible times, with its really weird family habits (“Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines”), to Antiquity with its equally strange architectonic features (“The Greek invented three kinds of columns – Corinthian, Ironic and Dork”), passing by Middle Ages, “when everyone was middle aged” and “People contracted the blue bonnet plague, which caused them to grow boobs on their necks”, then stressing that some otherwise famous writers failed the American dream (“Shakespeare never made much money and is famous only because of his plays”), giving some comforting information (“Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead”) or cleverly explaining some obscure sayings (“The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West”) until finally clarifying the place and spelling and role of some names in modern era (“Madman Curie discovered Radio and Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers”).
Unfortunately, the following chapters are only a selection of quotes with no comment whatsoever, and how I would have liked to cogitate a little about how sometimes the omission of a word helps to highlight an universal truth (“Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father’s fault.”), or how the satisfaction of a work well done exceeds the fear of punishment, like in this driver’s statement: “The pedestrian ran for the pavement, but I got him”, or how the journalists’ love for truth is greater than any political correctness, like in this headline: “CHILD’S DEATH RUINS COUPLE’S HOLIDAY”, or how sometimes you can be cured with the most unexpected remedy (“Gene Autry is better after being kicked by a horse”)
The last two chapters are more interesting, with their linguistic approach. I didn't know the term malapropism had another origin (from Richard Sheridan’s character, Mrs. Malaprop) apart from the obvious French one. The examples are funny, too (“Poe’s romance with Mrs. Stanard was purely plutonic”; “His mother got it all on film for prosperity”), and the bienapropisms (malapropisms that “leap across the chasm of absurdity and land on the side of the truth”), another name for eggcorns, in my opinion, even better: "I ate in a restaurant where the food was abdominal"; "Apartheid is a pigment of the imagination"
Overall, a funny book with much potential in becoming really interesting. But it is never too late, isn’t it? After all, people badly need to be reminded there is always someone who can help them, someone like the author of the following generous offer: "Illiterate? Write today for free help!"
I couldn't finish my review without some other funny quotes.
From students’ papers:
• Having one wife is called monotony. When a man has more than one wife he is a pigamist. A man who marries twice commits bigotry.
• Zanzibar is noted for its monkeys. The British governor lives there.
• Caesar expired with these immortal words upon his lips: “Eat you, Brutus!”
From journals’ headlines:
• SMOKERS ARE PRODUCTIVE, BUT DEATH CUTS EFFICIENCY
From ads:
• Four-poster bed, 101 years old. Perfect for antique lover.
And last but not least, from translations:
• In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
• On the faucet of a Finnish washroom : To stop the drip turn cock to right.
January 21, 2022
Richard Lederer wrote a bunch of books about the English language. I own three of three of them: (My ratings for each book is shown in parentheses)
Anguish English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults upon Our Language (5 stars)
More Anguished English: An Expose of Embarrassing, Excruciating, and Egregious Errors in English (4 stars)
The Bride of Anguished English: A Barrage of Bloopers, Blunders, Botches, and Boo-Boos (3 stars)
I’m not going to attempt to review the books, but thought I would give you a sample of the kind of thing that he writes about in them.
Here, according to Lederer, are some answers on American history tests turned in by students throughout the United States, from 8th grade through college. He swears that he did not make-up any of them. He pasted them together in order to give the reader a unique version of American history.
• Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, Pinta, and the Santa Fe.
• Sir Francis Drake circumcised the entire world – with a 100-foot clipper.
• De Soto was one of the cruelest conquerors there ever was. When Indians got in his way, he just ran right over them. That’s probably why they named a car after him.
• Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim’s progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
• America was founded by Four Fathers.
• George Washington led the United States to what it is today, while Ben and Dick Arnold were terrible traitors.
• Benjamin Franklin went to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared “a horse divided against itself cannot stand.” Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
• In the early 19th century Lois and Clark explored the Louisiana Purchase.
• Mormons settled in the West. Mormons believed that a man should have more than one wife. We call this polygamy. Other Christians believed that a man should have only one wife. We call this monotony.
• Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope.
• Thomas Edison invented the pornograph and the indecent lamp. Macaroni invented the wireless telephone.
• World War II happened when Adolf Hitler and the Knotsies had erotic dreams of conquest all over Europe. Hitler always called himself Der Furor, but his real name was Messer Smith. Franklin Roosevelt won a landslide and went over there and put a stop to Hitler, who committed suicide in his bunk. We dropped a bomb on Kamakazi, a heavy industrious city, and three days later on Niagara. Finally, World War II ended on VD Day.
• Martin Luther had a dream. He went to Washington and recited the Sermon on the Monument. Later, he nailed 96 Protestants in the Watergate Scandal.
******
Finally, here is a bonus failure to communicate taken from one of the books:
An individual representing the U.S. Department of Labor was speaking to a group of business leaders on the issue of diversity in the workforce. And he posed a question to the group: “How many employees do you have – broken down by sex?”
One individual responded, “Not many. Alcohol is a bigger problem for us.”
Anguish English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults upon Our Language (5 stars)
More Anguished English: An Expose of Embarrassing, Excruciating, and Egregious Errors in English (4 stars)
The Bride of Anguished English: A Barrage of Bloopers, Blunders, Botches, and Boo-Boos (3 stars)
I’m not going to attempt to review the books, but thought I would give you a sample of the kind of thing that he writes about in them.
Here, according to Lederer, are some answers on American history tests turned in by students throughout the United States, from 8th grade through college. He swears that he did not make-up any of them. He pasted them together in order to give the reader a unique version of American history.
• Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, Pinta, and the Santa Fe.
• Sir Francis Drake circumcised the entire world – with a 100-foot clipper.
• De Soto was one of the cruelest conquerors there ever was. When Indians got in his way, he just ran right over them. That’s probably why they named a car after him.
• Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim’s progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
• America was founded by Four Fathers.
• George Washington led the United States to what it is today, while Ben and Dick Arnold were terrible traitors.
• Benjamin Franklin went to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared “a horse divided against itself cannot stand.” Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
• In the early 19th century Lois and Clark explored the Louisiana Purchase.
• Mormons settled in the West. Mormons believed that a man should have more than one wife. We call this polygamy. Other Christians believed that a man should have only one wife. We call this monotony.
• Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope.
• Thomas Edison invented the pornograph and the indecent lamp. Macaroni invented the wireless telephone.
• World War II happened when Adolf Hitler and the Knotsies had erotic dreams of conquest all over Europe. Hitler always called himself Der Furor, but his real name was Messer Smith. Franklin Roosevelt won a landslide and went over there and put a stop to Hitler, who committed suicide in his bunk. We dropped a bomb on Kamakazi, a heavy industrious city, and three days later on Niagara. Finally, World War II ended on VD Day.
• Martin Luther had a dream. He went to Washington and recited the Sermon on the Monument. Later, he nailed 96 Protestants in the Watergate Scandal.
******
Finally, here is a bonus failure to communicate taken from one of the books:
An individual representing the U.S. Department of Labor was speaking to a group of business leaders on the issue of diversity in the workforce. And he posed a question to the group: “How many employees do you have – broken down by sex?”
One individual responded, “Not many. Alcohol is a bigger problem for us.”
July 10, 2015
An okay depiction of various language mistakes. Perfect for people who like to post a lot of status updates. It made me laugh a couple of times, so it gets a pass. It didn't leave me 'roaring with laughter' the way it promised though.
I can't put my finger on it, but I didn't like the tone of the book if that makes any sense. I didn't see this as a benign humorous mocking. Occasionally it was a bit condescending.
Still, some of the mistakes are hilarious. Others were trying too hard.
An advice: don't read it all at once. That might have been my mistake.
I can't put my finger on it, but I didn't like the tone of the book if that makes any sense. I didn't see this as a benign humorous mocking. Occasionally it was a bit condescending.
Still, some of the mistakes are hilarious. Others were trying too hard.
An advice: don't read it all at once. That might have been my mistake.
May 7, 2014
You can't go home again :(
I read this when it was first released, in 19mumblemumble, and laughed until I cried. Now I find Lederer condescending and annoying. I hate the sections with grammatical errors from "citizens applying for payments from a state welfare agency" and "actual [school] excuse notes". Listen to Lederer snicker because "an astonishing number of grownups blithely go about murdering the King's English without any inkling they are committing a serious crime."
Did not like.
I read this when it was first released, in 19mumblemumble, and laughed until I cried. Now I find Lederer condescending and annoying. I hate the sections with grammatical errors from "citizens applying for payments from a state welfare agency" and "actual [school] excuse notes". Listen to Lederer snicker because "an astonishing number of grownups blithely go about murdering the King's English without any inkling they are committing a serious crime."
Did not like.
September 11, 2012
I was a teenager living at home when I read this book for the first time. My mother expressed concern at all the howling noises she'd been hearing from my room since she got home. I tried to explain to her, but was laughing too hard to speak, tears streaming down my face. I finally handed her the book, and she understood immediately.
I've pared my bookshelves down a bit over the years and moves, but this is one book that is always guaranteed a spot.
I've pared my bookshelves down a bit over the years and moves, but this is one book that is always guaranteed a spot.
May 14, 2010
Everyone in the education field should read Lederer's essay, "World History According to Student Bloopers." Anyone who has proofread their own kids' essays will relate.
I still laugh outloud all these years later at the "defeat of the Spanish Armadillo."
I still laugh outloud all these years later at the "defeat of the Spanish Armadillo."
March 5, 2022
Very good! Some were amusing, some had me laughing out loud. A few of my favorites:
Potluck supper: prayer and medication to follow.
Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children.
Please excuse Mary from being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps.
We can't be a pancreas to the whole world's problems.
My uncle suffers from sick as hell anemia.
Drop your ballet in the ballet box.
Editors and Proff Readers -- Must be good in spelling and grammar.
Recommended! Enjoy!
Potluck supper: prayer and medication to follow.
Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children.
Please excuse Mary from being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps.
We can't be a pancreas to the whole world's problems.
My uncle suffers from sick as hell anemia.
Drop your ballet in the ballet box.
Editors and Proff Readers -- Must be good in spelling and grammar.
Recommended! Enjoy!
March 31, 2008
Funniest. Book. Ever. Every time I read it (or any other book by Lederer), I laugh until I weep.
July 20, 2008
Hilarious, and what's more, consistently hilarious. My high school English teacher and I bonded over this book.
December 25, 2008
I laugh just thinking about this book. The chapter on history of the world according to student bloopers alone is worth the price of the book.
November 19, 2008
It really isn't this book's fault that I didn't like it. If I had read it when it was first released I'm sure I would have appreciated it more. However, I was disappointed because 1) I was expecting a humorous take on grammar abuses (a la Eats, Shoots, and Leaves) and instead it turned out to be a collection of language "bloopers" of every ilk. 2) I'm not sure how it's possible that so many of these could have been reprinted and read by me without me ever realizing their source, but I'm pretty sure I had read all of the bloopers in here at one time or another. I'm giving credit to e-mail lists and one-liners at the end of Reader's Digest articles. At any rate, the novelty was gone, and they weren't all that clever or amusing to begin with.
Those complaints being registered, it's a quick read, and you're sure to laugh in at least a few places, even if you have heard them before, so if you go for that kind of thing (ya know, like the church bulletin gaffes such as: "For those of you who have children and don't know it, there's a nursery in the basement") then you'll enjoy this book. Otherwise, skip it.
Those complaints being registered, it's a quick read, and you're sure to laugh in at least a few places, even if you have heard them before, so if you go for that kind of thing (ya know, like the church bulletin gaffes such as: "For those of you who have children and don't know it, there's a nursery in the basement") then you'll enjoy this book. Otherwise, skip it.
June 26, 2012
More fun with discombobulated English! Like Richard Lederer's Get Thee to a Punnery, Anguished English will have you chuckling and grinning, if not rolling on the floor as you read examples of mangled English written not only by children, but by adults who you think would have learned better in school. Many of these have been on the email circuit, but having them all together makes for just plain fun! My numerically- (rather than verbally-) oriented husband had difficulty listening to some of them that involved homophones (sound-alike words, i.e. him/hymn). He enjoyed them more by reading them.
It's a great party pumper that can soon have people warmed up and in a good mood! Don't forget to provide extra eats -- laughter increases the appetite!!
For me, this book is best taken in small bites, letting a few sink in and then waiting a while(perhaps a day)to return for a few more.
And, for whatever it is worth, I bought this at Amazon.com for my Kindle e-reader. The book is also available in print format.
November 9, 2007
The perfect bathroom book, provided you can sit on the can while laughing uncontrollably. Lederer has collected the most hilarious misuses of the English language from student papers ("The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West"), newspaper advertisements ("Stock up and save. Limit: one"), accident reports ("My car sustained no damage whatsoever, and the other car somewhat less"), foreign shop signs (in Hong Kong, a clockwork toy "guaranteed to work throughout its useful life"), and more. To avoid overdosing, I recommend a day-long pause after each chapter.
March 11, 2016
OK, confession time: I needed a couple of slender books with light topics. This fit the bill, but had the added benefit of making me laugh until my sides ached. In the foreword, Lederer warns to sip the book, rather than imbibe in gulps -- but I had no time to sip, as I still have two more books to read before I reach my 100, as per my challenge (and only one more day). I still found the work hilarious. My parents have Bloopers and More Bloopers (published some time in the fifties or even forties), from which books Lederer took many of the student goofs, so some of the book I was already familiar with. Still, I cleared my lungs laughing, so it was well worth the time I took with it.
September 28, 2012
This was amusing, and several times I really did LOL. The muddled history chapter of 'The World According to Student Bloopers' made this little ABCDière find worthwhile. The majority of the book included variations on sexual innuendo, which I suppose is to be expected from a high school writing, anyway. Whoops, your Freudian slip is showing.
(3 days later) I'm willing to give a couple of extra stars for the joy of hearing my daughter read 'Anguished English.' Her laughter was contagious =0)
(3 days later) I'm willing to give a couple of extra stars for the joy of hearing my daughter read 'Anguished English.' Her laughter was contagious =0)
February 22, 2008
This is great - the author, after many years teaching English, presents the weirdest and funniest bloopers his students have come up with in the various things they wrote in his classes. The picture on the cover, of Shakespeare grimacing in horror, is apt - you can almost hear the great writers of Western history screaming "No, no, make it stop!" in response to some of the butcheries performed on their works. I laughed out loud on more pages than not.
June 19, 2013
This is what I refer to as a "fettucine alfredo" book. It starts out delightfully. "The World According to Student Bloopers" is hysterical. However, as when eating fettucine alfredo, somewhere around halfway through, continuing begins to amount to a low-grade form of torture. Mostly the author tries to hard. I found myself chuckling for about one out of every five attempts at humor in the latter chapters, and the final chapter on "Slurvians" was the worst part of the book.
January 3, 2015
almost every second paragraph of the introduction promised how funny and laugh till it hurts hilarity would be in the pages. I found some funny, but it was definitely a nitpicky book rather than celebrating blatant mistakes.
racists warning: there is a woman in blackface in one of the illustrations. that alone should allow me to put this at zero stars. I mean, come on, the book was published in the nineties, not the sixties.
racists warning: there is a woman in blackface in one of the illustrations. that alone should allow me to put this at zero stars. I mean, come on, the book was published in the nineties, not the sixties.
June 7, 2016
Some sections are laugh-'til-you-cry hilarious. Other sections are just a bunch of examples that contain no humor, and where often the intended meaning is clear enough that you have to squint at the text indefinitely to find the unintentional joke -- or else the joke just isn't funny (that's subjective, of course). I'm rounding up to four stars, because the better sections of the book made me laugh harder than I have laughed in a while.
Want to read
February 18, 2017I've actually read parts of this--hilarious!-- but not the whole thing through.
May 9, 2010
This is fun casual read. Share bits of it with your most punny friends. Lederer is a great columnist, and this book is a natural fit for his followers.
February 12, 2015
I've re-read this book many times, and it never gets old or outdated. Good fun for grammar Nazis like myself or anyone who enjoys reading about the English language.
September 24, 2024
4.5 stars
All his life, Richard Lederer collected typos, verbal goofs, and word substitutions that are funny. He culled them from student essays, legal documents, commercials, political speeches, and any other written text and he wanted to share his joy at those accidental blunders with his readers. His book's basic purpose is to present his collection and to make us laugh. The quotes - what real people actually wrote - are the main part of this book.
CHAPTER "Student Bloopers Win Pullet Surprises" focuses on schoolchildren's papers. I couldn't resist a few quotes from it:
"In 1957, Eugene O'Neill won a Pullet Surprise." Did you know what a Pullet Surprise is? Obviously, it is what writers win for wonderful works of literary fiction.
"The dog ran across the lawn, emitting whelps all the way."
"Zanzibar is noted for its monkeys. The British governor lives there."
"Adolescence is the stage between puberty and adultery."
CHAPTER "The World According to Student Bloopers" is a retelling of the world history, from antiquity to the 19th century, written as a compound, several-pages-long quote extracted from multiple student essays. I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.
CHAPTER "Excuses, Excuses", as you could guess, contains notes written by parents to their children's teachers. One of them says:
"Dear School: Please excuse John being absent on Jan 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33."
CHAPTER "Accidental Bloopers" showcases select descriptions of auto accidents from insurance forms. Truly, you can find levity anywhere.
In CHAPTER "Wholly Holy Bloopers" you can find all sorts of humorous masterpieces connected to church or religion. Consider this advertisement on a church's board:
"For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs."
There are chapters in this book dedicated to inadvertently hilarious billboard signs and ads. There are smash hits of translations and malapropisms you can't help sniggering about. And then, there are misspellings to savor.
Sometimes I howled with laughter as I read one short gaffe after another. Other times, I smiled or giggled or chortled. History, science, bible study, legal briefs, advertisements - anything was subject to this kind of linguistic butchery. The only chapters that felt flat for me were those citing newspaper headlines and article excepts. I didn't find most of those quotes terribly funny. Ironic maybe but not laugh-out-loud funny.
Overall: anyone who loves the English language will find this little gem of a book delightful.
All his life, Richard Lederer collected typos, verbal goofs, and word substitutions that are funny. He culled them from student essays, legal documents, commercials, political speeches, and any other written text and he wanted to share his joy at those accidental blunders with his readers. His book's basic purpose is to present his collection and to make us laugh. The quotes - what real people actually wrote - are the main part of this book.
CHAPTER "Student Bloopers Win Pullet Surprises" focuses on schoolchildren's papers. I couldn't resist a few quotes from it:
"In 1957, Eugene O'Neill won a Pullet Surprise." Did you know what a Pullet Surprise is? Obviously, it is what writers win for wonderful works of literary fiction.
"The dog ran across the lawn, emitting whelps all the way."
"Zanzibar is noted for its monkeys. The British governor lives there."
"Adolescence is the stage between puberty and adultery."
CHAPTER "The World According to Student Bloopers" is a retelling of the world history, from antiquity to the 19th century, written as a compound, several-pages-long quote extracted from multiple student essays. I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.
CHAPTER "Excuses, Excuses", as you could guess, contains notes written by parents to their children's teachers. One of them says:
"Dear School: Please excuse John being absent on Jan 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33."
CHAPTER "Accidental Bloopers" showcases select descriptions of auto accidents from insurance forms. Truly, you can find levity anywhere.
In CHAPTER "Wholly Holy Bloopers" you can find all sorts of humorous masterpieces connected to church or religion. Consider this advertisement on a church's board:
"For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs."
There are chapters in this book dedicated to inadvertently hilarious billboard signs and ads. There are smash hits of translations and malapropisms you can't help sniggering about. And then, there are misspellings to savor.
Sometimes I howled with laughter as I read one short gaffe after another. Other times, I smiled or giggled or chortled. History, science, bible study, legal briefs, advertisements - anything was subject to this kind of linguistic butchery. The only chapters that felt flat for me were those citing newspaper headlines and article excepts. I didn't find most of those quotes terribly funny. Ironic maybe but not laugh-out-loud funny.
Overall: anyone who loves the English language will find this little gem of a book delightful.
November 28, 2020
A deeply humorous collection of linguistic gaffes for people who love language, double meanings, and jokes based on grammar. I will note, however, that this edition does have an illustration with a minstrel in blackface, which I hope has been removed from more recent ebook additions, because, wow, that's awful.
February 4, 2024
I absolutely loved this book. It had me laughing and giggling the whole way through.
May 27, 2013
While the book as a whole was good, a couple of downfalls gives me hesitation to refer this book to others. The second chapter was brilliant, piecing together a warped world history using the mistakes of students in their essays. However, as the book goes on, it feels like Richard Lederer is trying too hard to pull together some of the jokes, with many mistakes that simply don't tickle the funny bone.
The presentation as truth of the commonly quoted JFK German translation mistake (proved to be a hoax: http://www.snopes.com/language/misxla...) where JFK calls himself a jelly donut instead of a Berliner, causes me to have hesitations about many of the other stories of this book. Many of the mistakes published in Anguished English are just not as funny if I have hesitations about their origins in truth, since anyone can make up a statement that sounds ridiculous by misplacing a word or two.
This book works well as a coffee-table or quick-bus-ride-read, but it's not one for the marathon reader or highly analytical.
The presentation as truth of the commonly quoted JFK German translation mistake (proved to be a hoax: http://www.snopes.com/language/misxla...) where JFK calls himself a jelly donut instead of a Berliner, causes me to have hesitations about many of the other stories of this book. Many of the mistakes published in Anguished English are just not as funny if I have hesitations about their origins in truth, since anyone can make up a statement that sounds ridiculous by misplacing a word or two.
This book works well as a coffee-table or quick-bus-ride-read, but it's not one for the marathon reader or highly analytical.
January 18, 2009
I received this book as a gift...and what a gift it was! Sometimes, the funniest moments in life are completely accidental. Anguished English, as the title suggests, is a compendium of blunders, bloopers, and mistranslations guaranteed to split your sides.
The book is divided into a number of chapters; the first few deal with "Schoolishness," that being the bloopers of students. A group of my friends have long cherished some of the gems from this section.
Other chapters are cleverly titled "Disorder in the Court!", "Wholly Holy Bloopers," "Goldwynisms and Berraisms," and "Modern Day Malapropisms." Some of those terms may be new to you; Goldwynisms, for one, are utterances from the mouth of famed producer Samuel Goldwyn.
If ever you've been embarrassed by putting your foot in your mouth, Anguished English should remind you that you're not alone. And the rest of the world is laughing along with you.
The book is divided into a number of chapters; the first few deal with "Schoolishness," that being the bloopers of students. A group of my friends have long cherished some of the gems from this section.
Other chapters are cleverly titled "Disorder in the Court!", "Wholly Holy Bloopers," "Goldwynisms and Berraisms," and "Modern Day Malapropisms." Some of those terms may be new to you; Goldwynisms, for one, are utterances from the mouth of famed producer Samuel Goldwyn.
If ever you've been embarrassed by putting your foot in your mouth, Anguished English should remind you that you're not alone. And the rest of the world is laughing along with you.
January 24, 2013
An easy read and a humorous way to pass the time! If you have ever been a teacher, a writer or one of those people who hates words such as "ain't", you will love this book. I myself since having a brain injury have found myself a member of the non-sequitur club! Yogi Berra has always been one of my favorite comedians (without his meaning to). One of my favorite
quotes by him is in this book.
When Mickey Mantle asked him "What time is it?" Berra replied: "you mean right now?" How much more zen like can you get than that?
One of my favorite malapropisms is also in this book. I find I sustain a few of these in my elder years as well (or not so well).
Here it is:
. Certainly the pleasures of youth are great, but they are nothing compared to the pleasures of adultery (page 74).
quotes by him is in this book.
When Mickey Mantle asked him "What time is it?" Berra replied: "you mean right now?" How much more zen like can you get than that?
One of my favorite malapropisms is also in this book. I find I sustain a few of these in my elder years as well (or not so well).
Here it is:
. Certainly the pleasures of youth are great, but they are nothing compared to the pleasures of adultery (page 74).
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