Says Who?: An In-Store Event with Anne Curzan

The Book Stall is delighted to host linguist, local NPR host, and veteran English professor Anne Curzan on Wednesday, June 12 at 6:30 pm for a discussion featuring her new book, Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares about Words. With lively humor and humanity, Says Who? reveals how our choices about language usage can be a powerful force for equity and personal expression. For proud grammar sticklers and self-conscious writers alike, Ms. Curzan makes nerding out about language fun. She will be happy to sign her work!

This event is free with registration. To register, please visit our website or CLICK HERE.

More About the Book: Our use of language naturally evolves. It is a living, breathing thing that is a reflection of us, so we shouldn’t let our language peeves raise our blood pressure too high. Says Who? offers clear, nuanced guidance that goes beyond “right” and “wrong” to empower us to make informed language choices. Never snooty, scoldy (yes, that’s a “real” word!), or boring, this book pulls back the curtain to reveal where the grammar rules we learned in school actually come from and to unmask the forces that drive dictionary editors to label certain words as slang or unacceptable.

Anne Curzan gives readers the guidance they need to adeptly manage formal and informal writing and speaking. Curzan gently explains, without judgment, how to connect local guidance with a bigger map for how to think about usage questions. Applying entertaining examples from literature, newspapers, television, and more, Curzan welcomes usage novices and encourages the language police to lower their pens, showing us how we can care about language precision, clarity, and inclusion all at the same time.

Ben Zimmer, language columnist for The Wall Street Journal, says, “A delightful exploration of the quirks and controversies in the English language . . . Whether you embrace your inner ‘grammando’ or inner ‘wordie,’ Says Who? is sure to satisfy anyone curious about language’s ever-shifting landscape.”

More About the Author: Anne Curzan is the Geneva Smitherman Collegiate Professor of English, Linguistics, and Education and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan, where she also currently serves as the dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.