Don't Believe a Word
The Surprising Truth About Language
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Narrated by:
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Damian Lynch
About this listen
An entertaining and highly informed guide to what languages are and how they function.
Everyone likes to think they know a bit about language: There are some words that you simply can't translate into English. The origin of a word tells you how it should be used. A dialect is inferior to a language.
The problem is, none of these statements are true. In Don't Believe a Word, linguist David Shariatmadari explodes nine common myths about language and introduces us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics. By the end of this eye-opening tour, listeners will understand that grammatical "errors" are in fact the foundation of modern English; that the meaning of a word is not what a dictionary says, but how it's used; and that the difference between what gets labeled a "language" or "dialect" is political, rather than scientific.
Don't Believe a Word offers an accessible and thorough introduction to the science behind one of the most essential aspects of our daily life.
©2019 David Shariatmadari (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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About Behaviorism is about the controversial philosophy known as behaviorism, written by its leading exponent.
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Refreshing and concise
- By Autumn and Sam on 07-30-22
By: B.F. Skinner
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Riveted
- The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe
- By: Jim Davies
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Professor Jim Davies's fascinating and highly accessible book, Riveted, reveals the evolutionary underpinnings of why we find things compelling. Drawing on work from philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, psychology, economics, computer science, and biology, Davies offers a comprehensive explanation to show that in spite of the differences between the many things that we find compelling, they have similar effects on our minds and brains.
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Fun and excellent listen!
- By Alejandro Franco on 04-13-18
By: Jim Davies
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Out of Our Heads
- You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness
- By: Alva Noe
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Alva Noë is one of a new breed - part philosopher, part cognitive scientist, part neuroscientist - who are radically altering the study of consciousness by asking difficult questions and pointing out obvious flaws in the current science. In Out of Our Heads, he restates and reexamines the problem of consciousness, and then proposes a startling solution: Do away with the 200-year-old paradigm that places consciousness within the confines of the brain.
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A bold, yet ultimately unsupported, hypothesis
- By Keith Pyne-Howarth on 01-17-10
By: Alva Noe
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Babel No More
- The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners
- By: Michael Erard
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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We all learn at least one language as children. But what does it take to learn six languages...or seventy? In Babel No More, Michael Erard, "a monolingual with benefits," sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like Italian cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages; Emil Krebs, a pugnacious German diplomat, who spoke sixty-eight languages; and Lomb Kat, a Hungarian who taught herself Russian by reading Russian romance novels.
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Heavy on anecdote, light on science
- By S. Yates on 07-15-16
By: Michael Erard
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Mind in Motion
- How Action Shapes Thought
- By: Barbara Tversky
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In Mind in Motion, psychologist Barbara Tversky shows that spatial cognition isn't just a peripheral aspect of thought, but its very foundation, enabling us to draw meaning from our bodies and their actions in the world. Our actions in real space get turned into mental actions on thought, often spouting spontaneously from our bodies as gestures. Spatial thinking underlies creating and using maps, assembling furniture, devising football strategies, designing airports, understanding the flow of people, traffic, water, and ideas.
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Physically difficult to listen to
- By Claire Hay on 11-08-19
By: Barbara Tversky
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The Prodigal Tongue
- The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English
- By: Lynne Murphy
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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"If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd sound like an American." "English accents are the sexiest." "Americans have ruined the English language." "Technology means everyone will have to speak the same English." Such claims about the English language are often repeated but rarely examined. Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English.
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TOO MUCH BITTERNESS
- By Tina on 08-27-20
By: Lynne Murphy
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Seeing Voices
- A Journey Into the World of the Deaf
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Oliver Sacks - introduction
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the result is a deeply felt portrait of a minority struggling for recognition and respect - a minority with its own rich, sometimes astonishing, culture and unique visual language, an extraordinary mode of communication that tells us much about the basis of language in hearing people as well.
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A Rich Experience
- By Douglas on 11-27-12
By: Oliver Sacks
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Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking
- By: Daniel C. Dennett
- Narrated by: Jeff Crawford
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Over a storied career, Daniel C. Dennett has engaged questions about science and the workings of the mind. His answers have combined rigorous argument with strong empirical grounding. And a lot of fun. Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking offers seventy-seven of Dennett’s most successful “imagination-extenders and focus-holders” meant to guide you through some of life’s most treacherous subject matter: evolution, meaning, mind, and free will.
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Loved it, but some philosophy background needed.
- By LongerILiveLessIKnow on 11-14-13
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The Story of English in 100 Words
- By: David Crystal
- Narrated by: David Crystal
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences, and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century ("roe", in case you are wondering). Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient words ("loaf") to cutting edge ("twittersphere") and spanning the indispensable words that shape our tongue ("and", "what") to the more fanciful ("fopdoodle"), Crystal takes us along the winding byways of language.
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Random but entertaining
- By Sean on 04-01-13
By: David Crystal
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Mindwise
- Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want
- By: Nicholas Epley
- Narrated by: Nicholas Epley
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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You are a mind reader, born with an extraordinary ability to understand what others think, feel, believe, want, and know. It's a sixth sense you use every day, in every personal and professional relationship you have. At its best, this ability allows you to achieve the most important goal in almost any life: connecting, deeply and intimately and honestly, to other human beings. At its worst, it is a source of misunderstanding and unnecessary conflict, leading to damaged relationships and broken dreams. How good are you at knowing the minds of others?
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Finally gave up - no real point
- By Thomas on 05-12-14
By: Nicholas Epley
What listeners say about Don't Believe a Word
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sonja Akpinar
- 07-31-23
everything you need to know about languages
Interesting book about languages, their history , the book is a treasure for any language nerd or author. I enjoyed the book as I am interested in languages, very detailed
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- Jerome Gentes
- 03-02-20
Superb primer for language and linguistics
The New York Times review for this title provoked me to read it, and I just finished it. As a word geek from way back, I savored every syllable. Lots of freshness here for anyone familiar with the field, and easily digestible for those not as inclined to nerd out on grammar, etymology, and language.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Arizona Wildcat
- 03-29-24
Disjointed and unfocused
There were parts of this that were very compelling and interesting. The rest of it, not so much.
I am fascinated by linguistics, and I really wanted to love this, but this did little to inform or influence me.
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- Kindle Customer
- 11-20-21
last chapter was not convincing at all
Language not being an instinct is presented as a fact without solid evidence, without substance. Verdict for the last chapter: don't believe a word.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 06-10-20
Don't waste your money
I was excited to listen to this book but it is really much much less than the title or reviews say it is. Somewhere in it is about 20 minutes worth of idea and hours and hours of padding and pedantry (really, more babble than information). My overall impression was that the author had an interesting idea/theory and was convinced to write a book; after the 1000 words to explain the idea, etc. he had to pad it out with something, anything. As a result, this is the "book", which is really a compendium of naive opinion making, commentary on nothing and uninteresting drivel. Stick with someone like McWhorter, who, whatever his faults, appears to actually respect the audiences' time and money
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5 people found this helpful