Kirkus review: "Erudite and ebullient"

"Economist language columnist Greene (You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity, 2011) sees language as 'ambiguous, changing, incomplete, redundant and illogical' as well as 'robust, organic, and evolving.' Language, he writes admiringly, 'is a wild animal like a wolf, well adapted for its conditions and its needs.' Erudite and ebullient, he disparages prescriptive pundits and purists who bemoan the decline of correct word choice and resist change. Spoken language is continually in flux, and even written English, while abiding by grammatical conventions, 'is a mixed language that provides a reader not with a rigid logical code, but a menu of options for getting ideas effectively into the reader’s mind.'