The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language
- by Cristine Kenneally
____________________________________________________________

It doesn't take prescience to review a book before you read it, it just takes practice. I amaze myself in my ability to judge a book by its cover with an astonishing amount of postive correlations when I compare my superficial judgements with my opinions after a full read later. No, I don't read the flaps but I do read the chapter headings and look at the author's picture when available.
Enough talk. Here is my review of THE FIRST WORD before I read it.

Before

A fluff piece with no new ideas but Christine Kenneally's latest book does direct the lay reader towards contemporary understandings of language and its role in human culture.

Following the lead of many popular science books of today Christine Kenneally has filled most of her 357 pages with a tiring recapitulation of the thoughts of the pioneers of language genesis. But happily in Chapter I she debunks the tiresome babble of Noam Chomsky so that any serious trains of thought about the origins of language can get back on track without further blithering.

And (as she will report) progress is being made. In Section III - WHAT EVOLVES? - she outlines the long-overdue new understanding of the integral nature of language and culture. These three chapters - 12 SPECIES EVOLVE, 13 CULTURE EVOLVES, 14 WHY THINGS EVOLVE - will be worth the twenty-six bucks.

Because of the general value of the information in these three chapters I rate THE FIRST WORD* _______________________________ ***1/2 stars


* Note: This book will be reviewed again afer I read it next week.

You could start writing for The New York Times Book Review.

Gee Faldage, you think so? Those fellows at the New York Times Book Review are pretty good. I bet most of 'em read their books before reviewing them.

Hmm...on the other hand most of 'em review books prissively by fashion rather than by brains so maybe...just maybe...

Hey, their reviews don't usually seem to be too much about the books, so maybe you shouldn't do it. But it couldn't hurt to try; the worst they can do is call you a red-necked booby.

Maybe I'll do it, Faldo. After all I've been called a red-necked boobie by better people than the New York Times.

The Rule of Four got a good review from the NYTBR. I am convinced they didn't really read it. Either that or they have no taste.

Did they actually talk about the book?

“A marvelous book with a dark Renaissance secret in its coded heart … Profoundly erudite … the ultimate puzzle book.” —The New York Times Book Review

"Comparisons to The Da Vinci Code are inevitable, but Caldwell and Thomason's book is the more cerebral-and better written-of the two: think Dan Brown by way of Donna Tartt and Umberto Eco." - Publishers Weekly

-joe (damning with faint praise?!) friday

You could always read the original Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (other scanned copies here and here) instead. Now, that's a thing of beauty. (Also a nice scanned copy (PDF) of the first English translation dedicated to Sir Phillip Syndey.)

Oh no, I'm afraid my stint as a book reviewer is following a trajectory reminiscence of a kamikaze dive plane. Yes I know that I promised to have a full review of the book The First Word posted here a week ago, but ladies and gents, try as I might, I just couldn't get pass the first chapter entitled Noam Chomsky.

Geez! I knew that book reviewing wasn't all peaches and cream but really, trying to read Cristine Kenneally 5,000 word apology for the sins of Noam made this reviewer wish he was back truck driving. Get this: in essence Miss Kenneally wrote (laboriously) that although Mister Chomsky's ideas about words are all wrong and stupid we should all pay homage to him because he is wrong and stupid. Huh? That was it for me...I decided to skip-read the rest of the book.

But much as it pains me I must be fair. The middle chapters do offer some warm fuzzy anthropomorphic stories about the results of scientific investigations into the word-like grunts and coos of animals. For example a ten inch tall grey parrot named Alex was said to have been taugh to say and comprehend the meaning of over fifty words and numbers. Throw out a few red, white, and blue marbles and ask little Alex how many blue marbles did he see and he'd squeek out the answer. And most of the time he would be right. Cool. On the other hand the investigators say that they taugh talking Alex to understand the abstraction "zero"...

"Alex's understanding of "none" is more like a child's than an adult's: if I show him that nothing is hidden under a cup and ask him, 'How many nuts?' he is like some autistic children or like children around three years of age. He simply refuses to answer. For him there is nothing there to comment on."

And so on. So...

It pains me to report that at this juncture I must drop the ratings for The First Word at least until I have skip-read the rest of the book. I now rate this book ** 1/2

We're working on a good NYTBR review, here. Lemme tweak it a litle, do some copy-editing and we'll be in the big bucks.

I don't think you give me enough credit. I've figured zero out by now, not to mention that I've learned to type with my beak like this. In all, I think I do pretty well for a parrot.

/harrumph

This is the best laugh of the three weeks you've been working on it.Thanks for sparing me (I won't generalize) the read and the money. I fully trust your revieuw. Thanks. Time flies.

Whew! Finished...at last. But first a little house cleaning and then I will post my review below for all here to preview.




Dear Faldage, without your encouragement and support this review would never have happened. Now if you will forward the review to your pals over at the New York Times Book Review for publication I will send you the standard two per cent of the one thousand dollars that they pay at NYTBR. And while twenty bucks might not seem like a lot to you, nine hundred and eighty dollars for just thirty minutes of reading is three hundred times more than I make for thirty minutes of sweeping at Allgood's General Store.



No no Alex, I didn't mean to imply that you weren't as smart as a parrot. I think that you are smarter than any parrot in the World. But I've only met one other fellow named Alex in my life and he was very smart but unfortunately Alex Growder is now dead. Alex was hiding from the law in the bin of a cement truck which then filled up with him in it and now Alex is part of Weiss Lock and Dam.






Thank you BranShea, you are a nice person. If you like I will send you some of the New York Times Book Review money. By-the-way, you misspelled "review" above (that is the french way) but I have corrected your spelling so no one will ever know.

Best make sure you slap a big old copyright notice on that sucker when you post it here or some folks might take it to be public domain and send it if in they own name, slipping the cool G-note right out from under our noses. Here's one for you in case you've run out of your own personal supply.

©

Thanks for your highlighted discretion. But you may have offended your future French readers here.They are also touchy about their language (and rightfully so). My misspelling is a hybrid of revue (fr) (which does not completely cover the word review)and review.
The French word is "compte rendu" for a book or an article.
Let's hope the NYTBR does not follow what's going on here.

Anybody that's touchy about folks making fun of the worst corruption of Latin in the known universe gets no sympathy from me.

The Last Word on The First Word
a review of a book about the origins of language written by Chistine Kenneally and reviewed by themilum

Acknowledgements

First out I'd like to thank in advance the editor of the New York Times Book Review for accepting this review for publication and for the one thousand dollar remuneration he will soon send for my many hours of perusing. Unlike others I don't think that the NYTBR people are pompous literary snobs, and coincidently the transmission in my pick up truck fell out today so I sure can use the money.

Secondly I'd like to thank my friend Faldage. Faldage loaned me a copyright sticker because he thinks that the folks at the NYTBR are crooks. I said: "Well maybe the are, Mister Faldage, but if they try to steal a single "if" or a "but" from my book review they'll be publishing their next reviews from the New York Times City Jail". I hate a crook.

The Review

Bummer. But don't blame Christine Kenneally. She writes as she was taught to write i.e. by textbook formula. First, you see, you report the history of what has been said about language. Then, you see, you write what is currently being said about language. And then you ask others to speculate about the future of speculation about language. And finally (and this is important) you must review your text to be sure that you have not included an original idea in all that you have written.
In school Miss Kenneally made all A's.

What...? No, I didn't say that. I think that Miss Kenneally's book is well written and out-of-the-ordinarily entertaining. Think Miss Kenneally a linquist groupie; tramping after word rockstars and hanging onto their every word. Bright-eyed, saucy, and sharp witted, you can understand her ability to annoy self-assumed important people without them being annoyed. This leads us to the book's epilogue, which asks the most prominent theoreticians of language today this rather sophomoric question...

If we shipwrecked a boatload of babies on the Galapago Islands -- assuming they had all the food, water, and shelter they need to thrive -- would they produce language in any form when they grew up? And if they did, how many individuals would you need for it to take off, what form might it take, and how would it change over the generations?

That did it. Not only was the question inane the responces of the fifteen most respected language experts in the world (from Wolfgang Fitch to Steven Pinker) displayed an ignorance of the true nature of language; one that is obvious and even glaringly apparent to four, maybe five, of the contributors to this AWAD forum.

Because of this I drop the rating of this book to 1/2 star

That's perty funny, Johnny, but that ain't the way I heerd it. The way I heerd it, one feller says t'other feller, "Sa-a-a-a-a-ay," he says, "I seen you in the park yesterday with a perty shady looking feller."

"That weren't me." says t'other feller, "That were my older brother. They don't let me go to the park no more."

"And why's that?" says the first feller.

"'Cause they thinks I'm too old to take keer of myself," says t'other feller.


Hee hee hee hee.

Faldage
...........
themilum


If the Ocean Condors ( cred. etaoin ) would not have eaten them within the week, the Blue Footed Boobies would show them how to walk, not talk.
Because of my criticism I may have been cut out of the share, but
you'd better use it for repairs anyway, the early morning shift laughed.And laughed again.