Review: Rebel Without a Clause by Sue Butler

Title: Rebel Without A Clause: Losing the linguistic plot…

Published: 29th September 2020, Macmillan

Status: Read October 2020 courtesy PanMacmillan Australia

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My Thoughts:

It’s surprising how often conversations about language crop up around our dinner table. The kids love to tease me about the way I say ‘tacos’, my son enjoys irritating his siblings with his eccentric vocabulary, and their father’s has a penchant for using old ‘bush’ phrases which often require translation. As it happens, just last week my youngest daughter started a debate when she took one of her siblings to task for saying pronounciation instead of pronunciation, which should please Sue Butler.

Susan Butler, the former Editor of the Macquarie Dictionary, has some very particular ideas about language and how it ought and ought not be used. Rebel Without a Clause is a collection of her observations on, among other things, ‘the vagaries of English pronunciation, complicated by differences in varieties of English and personal idiosyncrasies and social taboos’.

‘To Care or Not To Care’ is the title of her first chapter in which she provides a brief explanation of how and why language changes, the need to balance preservation with the right of expression, and the importance of clarity and meaning.

In further pithy chapters, Susan goes on to discuss cliches, inventions, awkward spellings, mixed metaphors, and misconceptions. Her erudite commentary tempered by her wit, she explores questions like; Is Sheila now a derogatory term? What’s the difference between flaunt and flout? Should Covidiot have a place in the dictionary? Do you order brus-ketta or bru-shetta?

There’s a little overlap between Rebel Without a Clause and Butler’s The Aitch Factor (2014), but not a troubling amount. I’m heartened to see Sue still believes we can do without the apostrophe, and yet I’m in complete agreement with her dislike of stream-of-consciousness writing.

Rebel Without a Clause is a delightful exploration of the ever evolving wonder of words, and would make an ideal gift for language lovers, or pedantics, grammar Nazi’s or wordsmiths.

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