Review: Why is This a Question? - Paul Anthony Jones ****

By Brian Clegg

There’s something cosily appealing about looking into why we use the (mostly written) word in a particular way, which Paul Anthony Jones does in this entertainingly readable little book. It might not interest everyone, but if you are into books (and particularly if, like me, you’re a writer), this should be on your wishlist.

The book is structured as a series of questions, and Jones kicks of with a brilliant one, in that appears simple, but it really isn’t: ‘What is a word?’ He sets up a number of possibilities, only to knock them down with counter-examples and puzzling exceptions. Is, for instance, “that’s” one word or two?

Some of the questions work better for me than others. I think Jones is at his best when he’s following the main thread of the book, which is on written English and its antecedents. Part of the enjoyment of the book is his frequent deviations along the way, and this will often include detours into one of the languages that has influenced English, such as French, or distinctively different languages – for example those that don’t use alphabets to explore the contrasts, but sometimes when he brings other languages in, there can be rather too many examples – there is more coherence when he links other languages to the main theme.

The same reduction in enthusiasm comes from a three variant questions – ‘How do we read?’, ‘How do we speak?’ and ‘How do we understand?’. Here, Jones deviates from linguistics to biology and the mechanics of these concepts. They are all certainly linked to written language, but felt rather worthy and heavy going in approach when compared with the lighter and more entertaining approach taken to the rest of the questions.

It’s the kind of book where it’s almost impossible to avoid commenting to someone nearby a fascinating factoid that you have picked up, whether it’s concerning a book only containing poems that attempt to provide a rhyme for ‘orange’, or how stress in spoken English enables us to distinguish between the otherwise audibly identical phrases of which only one is true: ‘A crow is a black bird’ and ‘A crow is a blackbird’. I learned a lot about the way English developed, going all the way back to the Proto-Indo-European language.

Works both as a gift book to someone interested in writing or language and as an enjoyable read in its own right.

See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here

Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.