sans titre

I had to write this book review as a homework assignment over the Christmas break for my »General Writing I« class at university. I found it worth sharing, as I received an A grade for it. Corrections by my teacher are included.

Jag Bhalla, I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms from around the World. National Geographic, 2009. 272 pages, PB. US $12.95. ISBN 978-1-4262-0458-6.

A couple of months ago, while browsing my list of suggested titles on Amazon, I stumbled on a small book called I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms from around the World by the Indian British author Jag Bhalla . In an interview with Selena Chambers, published on Bookslut – the only source of additional information on the author I could find on the internet – Bhalla says that so far he has worked »in design, film, technology and marketing« and is »very pleased to now be a first-time author«. The publisher whimsically notes that Bhalla is furthermore »an amateur idiomologist, amateur triviologist, amateur natural scientist«, and an »amateur entrepreneur«. In spite of all this downplaying on professionalism, the language lover in me screamed »Want!« especially since this book sells for just under $13, which seemed a bargain considering the US dollar’s steadily low exchange rates. Sadly, though, it turned out that Amazon Germany asked €12 in spite of the favourable import conditions.

Judging this book by its cover, the contents should be as illustrative as the caricatures of different idioms on its sleeve, and as casually or playfully presented as the typography of the title. All in all very inviting to a reader who looks for infotainment, which this book – judging by its contents as well – definitely is. Speaking of illustrations, the various drawings found both on the cover of the book as well as on its inside were provided by Julia Suits, who also is a cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine. Bhalla admits that in spite of being a language lover, he is »essentially monolingual«. This, however, has not stopped him from doing the work of a »lazy armchair polyglot«, as he calls himself, that is, gathering bits and pieces from a variety of dictionaries, books and essays on idioms (of course!), as well as from literature on such fields as evolutionary linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and even economy. »No visas, immunizations, or actual travel required«. Bhalla highlights that in order not to bore his readership with scientific double Dutch, he rather opts for the »sciencey«, or in other words, and with a nod to the popular TV comedian Stephen Colbert, »the emotional truth, the truthiness of the scientific facts«. Nevertheless he wants to be as exact as possible with a layman’s background of linguistics. According to the author, the book is »designed to fit into our attention-deficit-disorder-ly lifestyles«, and he expressedly invites the reader »to start discovering the joys of randomly diving into the idiom lists (seren-dipping)«.

This is the cue for the next topic to talk about, that is, the overall structure and style of the book. I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears is divided into an introduction, thirteen chapters on different categories of idioms (e.g. animals, appearance, countries, money), a final conclusion and an extensive list of sources. In every chapter there is a short introduction on the respective topic, followed by lists of idioms that fit this category. Although lists are said to be boring, these are not, since the idioms, expressions and proverbs gathered here often leave you wondering about their origin or how you would say that in your native language (if it is not English), or simply make you laugh. Most of the idioms presented are drawn from Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Russian and Yiddish. Unfortunately however, the author only uses few opportunities to talk about the histories of individual expressions. Bhalla’s prose is invitingly semi-formal with a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek and consciously interspersed idioms, while still being serious about the gathered facts and factoids (»I […] ask you not to shoot the messenger«), which the author presents with a lot of enthusiasm for the main topic. Subtopics this book deals with are for example, why idioms exist at all, why they are very much alive in spite of their superficial irrationality and idiosyncrasy, how the human brain deals with idioms, different theories of how and why language evolved, as well as random musings on the various categories of idioms this book covers.

In spite of this little book’s large price (at least in Germany), the main selling point for me is the extensive list of sources – and »sauces« – in the appendix, for those who want to delve deeper into the fascinating area of figurative speech. I’m not hanging noodles on your ears when I tell you that Bhalla’s book made a delightful bedside reading for several evenings.