British Language And Culture, by the Lonely Planet

This guide is an immensely humorous and often irreverent guide to British language and culture, and so it certainly lives up to its name. Perhaps the biggest issue with the book is the fact that the book is so small. There is certainly much more about British language and culture that could be said than is said in this particular pocket-sized guide. Nevertheless, if you are looking for an entertaining and brief guide to the distinctive aspects of British language and culture, this book will provide you what you are looking for and it is an enjoyable and worthwhile read despite its brevity. More to the point, it includes some distinctive elements despite its small size that one would not expect, and for this reader at least, that made up considerably for the fact that I wanted to see more here than was being offered. I would happily have read a book that was double the length on pages four times the size of what we see here, and whether or not that is true of you, if you wish to travel to the United Kingdom or move there, this book will provide enough insight to make at least some faux pas less likely to occur, and that was likely the aim of this book. Consider it, in this aspect at least, a target that is hit.

This book is about 200 small pages in length and could fit comfortably in a pants pocket, at least for a guy. The book is divided into eight unnumbered chapters. The first chapter provides a short history of the British as a region apart from its far-flung and sometimes more popular fellow dialects of English, like American or Canadian or Australian English. The history of the British provides a great deal of explanation as to why the language is what it is. This is followed by a look at speaking British English as opposed to other varieties. After that there is a discussion about living the British way, which includes some cultural aspects that are unique or distinctive to England at the present day–or at least within the past twenty years or so. After this comes a discussion on eating, drinking, and making merry, which includes a lot of references to being drunk and its many synonyms, a reminder of the fecund vocabulary that can be found in English as well as the tendency of those in Great Britain (and Ireland) to get thoroughly soused. After that there is a discussion of English sport, including football (soccer to us Yanks), cricket, and other British things, including a love of movies and theater. There is a chapter on slang and misunderstandings that result from false cognates and words that are used differently in Britain than in other areas, some of them bordering on if not crossing into the offensive. The last two chapters, though, are the ones that surprised me the most, with a focus on regional variations in the penultimate chapter, and a discussion of regional languages like Scots Gaelic, Welsh, and Cornish in the last chapter. These two chapters are particularly useful, albeit brief, in getting a handle on the regional dialects and languages that enrich British English and sometimes far beyond.

There is a lot to enjoy about this work, and it is only a surprise to me that, at least from what I could see, I was the first person to even rate this particular volume on Goodreads. Given the amount of books that are absolute rubbish that receive hundreds or even thousands of positive ratings, it seems strange that a book of modest but definite achievement in explaining and providing insight about an important matter from a popular and well-regarded travel publisher should be so disregarded as it is. If you can find this book, as I did, in a library or in some other easily accessible place, it is certainly a book that is worth reading if you have any interest in traveling to the UK, living and working in the UK, and better understanding some of the quirks of one’s British friends. That is enough of a purpose, I would think, to make this a book well worth reading, at least in my own estimation.