You Say Potato

Ben Crystal; David Crystal

ISBN 10: 1447249690 / ISBN 13: 9781447249696

Published by Macmillan (edition First Edition), 2014

About this Item

It's a well-cared-for item that has seen limited use. The item may show minor signs of wear. All the text is legible, with all pages included. It may have slight markings and/or highlighting.

Seller Inventory # 1447249690-8-1

Bibliographic Details

• Title: You Say Potato
• Publisher: Macmillan (edition First Edition)
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1447249690
• ISBN 13: 9781447249696
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Authors

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.

David Crystal works from his home in Holyhead, North Wales, as a writer, editor, lecturer and broadcaster. He has published extensively on the history and development of English, including The Stories of English, Evolving English and Spell It Out: The Singular Story of English Spelling. He and his son Ben joined forces to co-write You Say Potato and The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary of Shakespeare. He held a chair at the University of Reading for ten years, and is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bangor. He was 'Master of Original Pronunciation' at Shakespeare's Globe in London for its productions of Romeo and Juliet and Troilus and Cressida in 2004-5, and has since acted as an accent consultant for other such productions worldwide.