An authoritative, entertaining book about our accents, and what they
say about us
Some people say scohn, while others say schown. He says bath, while she
says bahth. You say potayto. I say potahto And--wait a second, no one
says potahto. No one's ever said potahto. Have they? From reconstructing
Shakespeare's accent to the rise and fall of Received Pronunciation,
actor Ben Crystal and his linguist father David travel the world in
search of the stories of spoken English. Everyone has an accent, though
many of us think we don't. We all have our likes and dislikes about the
way other people speak, and everyone has something to say about
"correct" pronunciation. But how did all these accents come about, and
why do people feel so strongly about them? Are regional accents dying
out as English becomes a global language? Witty, authoritative, and
jam-packed full of fascinating facts, You Say Potato is a celebration
of the myriad ways in which the English language is spoken--and how our
accents, in so many ways, speak louder than words.