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Summary
Summary
Inspired by his tenure at The New Yorker, this collection of comical, revelatory errors foraged from the wilds of everyday English comes with commentary by the author, illustrations by Roz Chast, and a foreword from Billy Collins.
During his time at The New Yorker, Daniel Menaker happened across a superb spelling mistake: "The zebras were grazing on the African svelte." Fascinated by the idea of unintentionally meaningful spelling errors, he began to see that these gaffes--neither typos nor auto-corrects--are sometimes more interesting than their straight-laced counterparts. Through examples he has collected over the course of his decades-long career as an editor and writer, he brings us to a new understanding of language--how it's used, what it means, and what fun it can be.
Illustrated by the inimitable Roz Chast, with a foreword from former poet laureate Billy Collins, The African Svelte offers thoughtful and intelligent exit Jesus. Menaker glances at familiar fumbles like "for all intensive purposes" and "doggy-dog world," but readers delighted by language will find themselves turning the pages with baited breath to discover fresh howlers that have them laughing off their dairy airs.
Author Notes
Robert Daniel Menaker was born on September 17, 1941 in New York City. He earned a B.A. from Swarthmore College and an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University. Menaker was executive editor in chief at Random House and was a senior fiction editor at the New Yorker magazine for more than 25 years. His books include "Friends and Relations," a collection of short stories (1976), The Old Left and Other Stories (1987), and "The Treatment," a novel (1998). His more recent work includes, A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation (2010), and My Mistake, a memoir (2013). Daniel Menaker died on October 26, 2020. He was 79.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this slender volume, Menaker (My Mistake), a former editor at the New Yorker and Random House, delivers a wry look at a particular type of poor usage that he deems "the African svelte." The African svelte is "the verbal equivalent of trying to put a shoe on the wrong foot," because it somehow fits anyway, Menaker explains, referring to unintentionally misused words that produce comprehensive sentences. Menaker introduces the concept with the story of its namesake: he came across the sentence "the zebra were grazing on the African svelte" while reading through the fiction slush pile at the New Yorker magazine and was so amused that he started keeping a working list of similar slippages. He also muses on the Internet's effect on language, and other types of word gaffes including spoonerisms, malapropisms, eggcorns, etc. The bulk of the book consists of numbered examples of sveltes along with short explanations of their provenance. Illustrator Chast (Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?) chimes in to illustrate entries intermittently throughout the book (her sketch for "the terrorist was wearing a baklava" being particularly funny). The result is an amusing romp through the English language that will please language snobs and open-minded linguists. B&w illus. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Common expressions gain richness of meaning through mistakes in word usage.As an editor at the New Yorker, Menaker (My Mistake, 2013) often encountered phrases from fledgling writers in which a sound-alike word, mistaken for the right one, would add a whole new dimension to the meaning of a phrase. Take, for example, the throws of packing, which replaces a word that many could not define (throes) with a common, action-packed one that suggests the way so many of us pack, throwing things here and there into piles, boxes, or suitcases. Or, pass mustard. Even fewer might be able to define the correct muster or use it in any other context. But mustard provides a visual dimension, however incongruous, and it perhaps relates to another phrase, too old to cut the mustard, which is linguistically unrelated but could become confused in the mind. Some of the entries proceed from a different impulse and gain poetic resonance, such as sobbing wet, which seems to suggest something different and sadder than sopping. And having a self of steam could easily apply to someone suffering from low self-esteem. New Yorker illustrator Chast (Cant We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, 2014, etc.) is typically brilliant when the cues call for visualization, especially with the stomach X-ray for end-trails and something that really gets my gander up (another one of those where most readers couldnt define the correct dander or use it in any other context). There is even one selection that could spark a geographical debate, since chile peppers is common parlance from Texas through the Southwest, even though Red Hot Chile Peppers would not be correct as the bands name. Acclaimed poet Billy Collins provides the foreword. An up-and-down yet mostly amusing collection. Many readers will skim the short analyses while enjoying the examples and illustrations. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.