Re: Book: Lunatic Lovers of Language

Eli:
> Don't waste your money.  Yaguello is a crank of precisely the sort
> she claims to despise.
She's a fairly run of the mill french academic, who works towards the softer
end of linguistics and has a moderate, respectable research profile.

I dislike the book as much as anyone else, and can claim credit for being the
first to review & slag it off on this list, but I don't think it's fair to
call Yaguello a crank. Not unless you would accept that she belongs to a
nation of cranks.

--And.


> As others have pointed out, she ignores
> artlangs and is thus able to claim that all conlangers are driven by
> a frustrated lust for power.  Lest there be any doubt of this, she
> makes the absurd claim that conlangers are almost exclusively
> male--from which, one supposes, her theories regarding power and
> control complexes are intended to be self-evident, and probably are
> to the puffed-up postmodernist pseudo-intellectuals who are her
> audience.  Gah.
>
> To be fair, I will admit that I was unable to finish this book.
> Perhaps it gets better.  I doubt it.
>
> eli . ishmael@pocketmail.com
> gone to croatan
> <- Original Text ->
>
> Many years ago, I posted a question about conlangs to sci.lang. One of
> those who replied recommended the book Lunatic Lovers of Language by
> Marina Yaguello, which is supposed to be about Tolkien's languages and
> other conlangs. I have since tried to find this book, but with little
> success. Until now. Today I noticed that it can be ordered from Amazon at
> a price of approx. $40.
>
> Before spending that kind of money, I would like to know what you people
> think about the book. What does it contain? Is it worth the money? Is it
> mostly about grammar? Vocabulary? The creative process? Something else?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
>   /Fredrik