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You Say Tomato: An Amusing and Irreverent Guide to the Most Often Mispronounced Words in the English Language Hardcover – July 29, 2005

by R. W. Jackson (Author)

2.5 7 ratings

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Ever wonder if "vase" is pronounced VASE or VAHZ? If "Pulitzer" is PYOO-lit-zer or PULL-it-ser? If "niche" is NITCH or NEESH?
Whether you're an articulation stickler or (like the rest of us) insecure with pronunciation, R. W. Jackson's You Say Tomato is sure to tickle and inform. With subtle, acerbic repartee, Jackson has created a diabolically funny dictionary of words that, as he gleefully points out, even our highest officials grapple with. Are you among the millions who cringe when George W. Bush pronounces "nuclear" as NOOK-lar? Are those TV news reports correct when they say SAW-di-Arabia? (It's SOW-di, right?) How can they be so nay-EEV?
Nothing is sacred with Jackson as lexicographer. He trains his sardonic sights on everything from political correctness to pop music, corporate culture to foreign policy, and reality shows to the right wing. Prepare yourself for a wickedly irreverent reading experience!

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Word geeks everywhere will delight in this 700-word pronunciation guide, which is intended to take readers through the "murky phonological corridors where words such as 'Aesop' and 'anchovy,' 'viva voce' and 'synecdoche' lie in wait to trip the tongue fantastic." Given in alphabetical order, entries list the word, its phonetic spelling, its part of speech, and a definition with decidedly snarky overtones. Acumen (uh-KYOO-mun), for instance, is defined as "a quality mysteriously absent from homogenized twenty-first-century studentry (except in the area of cheating)." Jackson, also the author of The Diabolical Dictionary of Modern English (1986), displays the kind of irreverent wit that will appeal to fans of George Carlin. And in between providing chuckles, he relays some surprisingly useful information (note to self: forte is pronounced "FORT" not "For-tay"). In addition to its high browsing appeal, this little tome should come in handy for all who wish to wield language with a certain savoir faire (sav-wahr FAR). Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

R. W. Jackson is the author of THE DIABOLICAL DICTIONARY OF MODERN ENGLISH. His idols include Swift, Dr. Johnson, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, P. G. Wodehouse, and George Carlin. He lives in Sun City, Arizona.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Thunder's Mouth Press (July 29, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1560257628
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1560257622
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 7.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #8,043,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,250 in Phonetics & Phonics Reference
- #5,240 in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses
- #8,717 in Dictionaries (Books)

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2.5 7 ratings

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John R. Hightower

No pronunciation key

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2011

Verified Purchase

If you want to buy this book thinking that it will help you with learning correct pronunciation, don't waste your time. A pronunciation key is needed for any book that addresses this issue. There is none.

Some of the definitions are amusing.

Helpful

Geoff

Amusing and Irreverent

Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2023

An amusing and irreverent little book. The other reviewers gave me a laugh; I can only imagine they also angrily critiqued "Green Eggs and Ham" as a disappointing cookbook.

One person found this helpful

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Filipe

Not as good as it seems

Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2012

It is not as good as it seems, particularly for two reasons:
-first, it does not use the regular phonetic code/key (the same dictionaries use), which makes it difficult at times to understand what the author meant;
-second, it is not accurate for some words: it says that only one pronunciation is correct, although dictionaries and other reference books accept more than one pronunciation as standard.

Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2005

This is really a very silly book, no way could it be called a dictionary or reference material. Judging from his crazy definitions, I have doubts about his pronunciation as well. He seems to think we Southerns have no culture. His being in Arizona, I'm sure that we do speak differently than he is used to; we 'drawl' out things instead of 'articulate'.

I found his supply of hard to pronounce words lacking. Not only is 'articulate' missing, so is 'boulevard,' 'rotisserie,' 'puny,' 'quixotic,' 'queue,' and many others which need a bit of explaining. Perhaps, they don't have 'boulevards' out there; they don't have 'viaducts' in Oak Ridge, and that's only thirty miles west of Knoxville. One of our downtown 'viaducts' is now in the process of being torn down pillar by pillar so as not to damage the railroad tracks beneath. It will be replaced by a 'bridge,' like they did the viaduct near the L&N, a place made famous by James Agee with his autobiographical Pulitizer-winning novel. The first movie of DEATH IN THE FAMILY used that viaduct back in the Sixties. Everyone knows that 'viaduct' is over tracks, while 'bridges' can be over water. For trains, that is a 'trestle.'

Once, I had the audacity to pronounce 'Alzheimer' the way he has it listed only to have another, more educated, person show me that the dictionary has it the way she wished to say it. I mis-pronounced 'facade' in one of my early book reviews and the librarian/critic of the literary club made a big issue over it. I could not get a Southerner to tell me how to say that word, then Catherine who was a military brat showed her sophistication by nonchalantly saying it the French way.

As a high school student, I had a penpal in Barcelona, Spain, who sent me original Spanish items. I was interested in Jackson's definition of a 'toreador' as being "a bullfighter on horseback" ) whoever heard of such a thing?! He facetiously associates it with a 'matador' for a "bullfighter on foot."

If you want to be amused at the stupidity of some experts, check out some of the words listed. He and Don Ferguson, local grammar guru for the daily paper, would become bosom pals with their expertise. He might not be able to understand my way of speaking, but writing is pure English -- no way to misunderstand the written word. Mr. Jackson needs a class in Southern vocabulary, Knoxville-style. He has previously written THE DIABOLICAL DICTIONARY OF MODERN ENGLISH. Perhaps, in it, he explains how to decipher and pronounce the Old English used by Chaucer in THE CANTERBURY TALES, a fascinating series of stories in undecipherable English.

8 people found this helpful

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Charlene Vickers

Borderline racist, often wrong, and (worst of all) not funny

Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2009

It's been a long time since I've been this disappointed in a book. Not only does You Say Tomato fail at everything it does, it also takes the opportunity to insult as many people as it can while it's failing.

This book has multiple personality disorder. On one hand, it seems to think that it's a comedy book, which would be fine if the jokes were funny or if Jackson knew anything about timing or pacing. They aren't and he doesn't, which makes it difficult for the reader to differentiate between his attempts at humor and the information he's also trying to impart. Jackson has also confused stereotypes with humor; every other entry contains a putdown of the French, Southerners, New Yorkers, Russians, and almost every other group Jackson isn't personally a member of. It's borderline racist, Mr. Jackson, but even that wouldn't be a disaster IF THE JOKES WERE FUNNY. Enough with the "French are inferior to Americans in every way" or "Southerners are stupid hicks who can't talk" garbage. Enough with the "the only way you can succeed is to become an American" nonsense. Enough with all of your jingoism.

On the other hand, You Say Tomato tries to be a reference book, which would be fine if it were anywhere near reliable. Many of the pronunciations he belittles are perfectly acceptable; he seems to be belittling them because he thinks that non-American pronunciations are flat out wrong. If it weren't for his narrow-minded comments about the French and the English, I'd wonder if he even realized there was a world outside the United States, or that books are normally distributed internationally. But he doesn't even accept all American accents as equally valid: oh, no, he belittles Southern accents and African-American accents too, because apparently his way of speaking is the One True Way and everyone else had better be just like him or accept their own inferiority.

I suspect this book was originally going to be a simple pronunciation guide before the popularity of Eats, Shoots & Leaves enticed the writer into "improving" his work. It wasn't an improvement.

I *so* do not recommend this book. Not funny, not accurate, not worth your time or money.

7 people found this helpful

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M. Munson

Useless

Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2006

Thank goodness I took this out at the Library and did not waste my money. Most words that I wished were included were not in the book, but words like "snob" were included. Has anyone ever mispronounced "snob?" This book was not amusing and not helpful.

7 people found this helpful

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Pierre

Not what I expected

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2006

Although some of his pronounciations come as a surprise to me, the point was to educate myself. However, I disagree totally with the Amazon review which stated that he provides useful information. The author is so intent on being "clever" that the history or trends regarding the usages of the words is ignored.

I think it was a waste of money.

5 people found this helpful

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