Bryson, Bill. Made in America: an Informal History of the English Language in the United States. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1994.
Made in America has multiple personalities. It could be seen as a classification of American etymology, a short history of American culture, a collection of forgotten trivia, a handbook of conversation starters, a joke book of humor, or as most people see it, all of the above. The inside cover of Made in America sums up the book perfectly, “Bryson’s is a unique history, not only of American words, but of America through words.”
Favorite lines, “…Clark fared better. He became governor of the Missouri Territory and commanded it with distinction, though he never did learn to spell” (p122).
Favorite tidbits of information: Frederick Remington never saw a real cowboy and was too fat to ever get on a horse; foodcarts weren’t allowed to vend on residential streets so they moved to parking lots, removed their wheels and became restaurants; Sylvester Graham believed food with taste was immoral.
Book Trivia: You could call Made in America a history of American words or words describing an American history.
Author Fact: Bill Bryson once worked in a psychiatric hospital. Doing what? Making the patients laugh out loud when things got too manic?
Book Lust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Bill Bryson: Too Good To Miss” (p 36).
~*LunaSea*~ 