Review of Pulju’s An Optimality-Theoretic Account of the History of Linguistics: Past, Present, Future—TJP SpecGram Vol CLI, No 2 Contents LingDoku—Like SuDoku, But For Linguists—Trey Jones

Whettam’s Linguistics: an
extraordinarily short introduction

Reviewed by A. Crostic

Linguistics: an extraordinarily short introduction.
H.P. Whettam. Droxfo University Press, 2006. 1p. $137.00

Lately it seems to me as though everyone
is trying to find some way to cash in on the
noteable success of a class of textbooks
geared toward a naive—one may even say
unsophisticated—audience. One case
in point is Matthews’ Linguistics: a very
short introduction. While I am sure that
that is a fine textbook, do not expect every
instance of this kind of title to be one you
can expect even the most basic level of
scholarship or general quality from.

I find Linguistics: an extraordinarily
short introduction by Whettam lacking.

Typically, one may quote a text—a time-
honored tradition of fair use made, legally,
extremely unsafe by this book’s brevity.

Suffice it to say that this book is for
consumption only by libraries with overly,
illogically, liberal policies that go and buy
every textbook that comes out (one hears
nasty rumors of such purchases made in
triplicate—such a development would
indicate that our universities have fallen
further from a state of grace than I ever
imagined), never to be studied, perused,
consulted, or even opened by anyone.
      Sad as the current sorry state of the world of
textbooks may be, it is nonetheless my
undying hope that—and very much to the
detriment of Whettam and Droxfo—all of
you will do your part to help.

Oppose any effort to order this book. Hit the
fatuous publishers of slop where it hurts most.

Help bring home the message that the era of
uncritical purchases of textbook dross by
myopic university library policies is finally
at an end. Vote with your purchase orders:
nothing makes publishers listen like red ink.

Let me reiterate, as a vent for my substantial
anger, that this book serves no real purpose,
not academic, not linguistic. It has nothing
going for it. It is so brief as to be completely
useless, and will never be valuable. Finally,
although quoting the dreck under review is
grimly infeasible, clever readers will find the
evilly brief content of this text hinted at herein.
.......... reviewed by A. Crostic

References

Linguistics : a very short introduction.
P.H. Matthews. Oxford University Press, 2003.

010 111 111 111 001 000 111 111 111 101 000 000 110 110 010 100 101 111 111 001 000 111 111 010 000 001 101 110 010 101 111 111 001 010 001 010 111 001 010 010 111 111 111 110 010 001 100 000 000 000 000 000 001 000 000 110 110 000 010 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 010 100 101 111 111 111 100 100 011 111 110 100 000 011 011 001 010 010 111 111 001 000 111 111 010 000 001 101 100 101 011 100 101 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 101 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 101 001 011 111 111 111 001 000 110 000 000 000 000 000 000 100 000 011 011 000 001 010
— Spoon
Review of Pulju’s An Optimality-Theoretic Account of the History of Linguistics: Past, Present, Future—TJP
LingDoku—Like SuDoku, But For Linguists—Trey Jones
SpecGram Vol CLI, No 2 Contents