You Say Potato - by Ben Crystal & David Crystal (Paperback)

About the Book

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.

Book Synopsis

An authoritative, entertaining book about our accents, and what they say about us

About the Author

Ben Crystal is an actor, producer, and writer. He played Hamlet in the first Original Pronunciation production of the play for 400 years with the Nevada Repertory Company, and curated the British Library's CD, Shakespeare's Original Pronunciation. He cowrote Shakespeare's Words and The Shakespeare Miscellany with his father, David Crystal, and his first solo book, Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard was shortlisted for the 2010 Educational Writer of the Year Award. He and his Shakespeare ensemble perform and give Shakespeare workshops around the world. David Crystal works as a writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster. He has published extensively on the history and development of English, including The Stories of English, Evolving English, and Spell It Out: The Singular Story of English Spelling. He and Ben cowrote The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary of Shakespeare.