Book spine poem: Broken words spoken here

New books mean a new book spine poem, aka bookmash. This one has a language theme.

[Click to enlarge]

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Broken words spoken here

Broken words spoken here:
Swearing, texting,
The unfolding of language,
Native tongue lapsing
Into a comma –
You just don’t understand.

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Thanks to the authors: Helen Hodgman, Mark Abley, Geoffrey Hughes, David Crystal, Guy Deutscher, Suzette H. Elgin, Bill Walsh, and Deborah Tannen; and to artist Nina Katchadourian.

Tannen’s book featured in a post here in June on gender differences in listening signals, while long-time readers will have seen another Guy Deutscher work, Through the Language Glass, in my earlier bookmash ‘Forest of Symbols’. Elgin’s feminist ling-sci-fi Native Tongue is the one I read most recently; I haven’t yet got to the first three in the stack.

Older book spine poems are here. Feel free, as always, to join in.