How to Talk Like a Local

Sep 30, 2024 11:37 AM

Author:Susie Dent

'Susie Dent is a national treasure' RICHARD OSMAN

'Susie Dent is a one-off. She breathes life and fun into words and language' PAM AYRES

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Would you be bewildered if someone described you as radgy?

Do you know how to recognise a tittamatorter?

And would you understand if someone called you a culchie?

How to Talk Like a Local gathers together hundreds of words from all over the country and digs down to uncover their origins. From dardledumdue, which means daydreamer in East Anglia, through forkin robbins, the Yorkshire term for earwigs, to clemt, a Lancashire word that means hungry, it investigates an astonishingly rich variety of regional expressions, and provides a fascinating insight into the history of the English language.

If you're intrigued by colourful words and phrases, if you're interested in how English is really spoken, or if you simply want to find out a bit more about the development of our language, How to Talk Like a Local is irresistible - and enlightening - reading.

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'Nobody on earth knows more about the English language than Susie Dent and nobody writes about it more entertainingly' GYLES BRANDRETH

'It's an interesting and, at times, hilarious read. One for word-lovers' THE SUN

Reviews

It's an interesting and, at times, hilarious read. One for word-lovers

—— The Sun

A scattershot guide to regional British vocabulary, from "gutties" to "woollyback" and beyond

—— Big Issue Scotland

An amenable, approachable but intelligent look at regional idiom and slang

—— thebookbag.co.uk

[A] witty, erudite exploration...[Bellos] delights in [translation's] chequered past and its contemporary ubiquity...He would like us to do more of it. With the encouragement of this book, we might even begin to enjoy it

—— Maureen Freely , Sunday Telegraph

Is That A Fish In Your Ear? is spiced with good and provocative things. At once erudite and unpretentious...[it is a] scintillating bouillabaisse

—— Frederic Raphael , Literary Review

Is That A Fish in Your Ear? by David Bellos (father of Alex of Numberland fame) is a fascinating book on the world of translation that might well be this year's Just My Type

—— Jonathan Ruppin, Foyles Booskhop

Selected by The Times' 'Daily Universal Register' as a 'Try This' Book

—— The Times

A fascinating...very readable study of the mysterious art and business of translation...Bellos asks big questions...and comes up with often surprising answers...sparky, thought-provoking

—— Nigeness

Forget the fish-it's David Bellos you want in your ear when the talk is about translation. Bellos dispels many of the gloomy truisms of the trade and reminds us what an infinitely flexible instrument the English language (or any language) is. Sparkling, independent-minded analysis of everything from Nabokov's insecurities to Google Translate's felicities fuels a tender-even romantic-account of our relationship with words.

—— —NATASHA WIMMER, translator of Roberto Bolaño’s Savage Detectives and 2666

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? offers a lively survey of translating puns and poetry, cartoons and legislation, subtitles, news bulletins and the Bible

—— Matthew Reisz , Times Higher Education Supplement

Please read David Bellos's brilliant book

—— Michael Hofmann , Guardian

A clear and lively survey...This book fulfils a real need; there is nothing quite like it.

—— Robert Chandler , Spectator

In his marvellous study of the nature of translation...[David Bellos] has set out to make it fun...Essential reading for anyone with even a vague interest in language and translation - in short, it is a triumph

—— Shaun Whiteside , Independent

A dazzyingly inventive book

—— Adam Thirlwell , New York Times

Witty and perceptive...stimulating, lucid, ultimately cheering

—— Theo Dorgan , Irish Times

A wonderful, witty book about words, language and cultural anthropology by a scholar whose fascination with his subject is itself endlessly fascinating

—— The Economist Books of the Year 2011

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? strikes me as the best sort of nonfiction, an exhilarating work that takes up a subject we thought we understood - or knew we didn't - and then makes us see it afresh. Such high-order scholarly popularizations, accomplished with the grace and authority of a David Bellos, are themselves an irreplaceable kind of translation

—— Michael Dirda , Washington Post

Selected as a National Book Critics' Circle Award Criticism Finalist 2011

—— NBCC

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