This is an excellent book.
This year I've really been getting into non-fiction so when I saw this I was excited to pick it up.
I felt this provided a well-rounded, thorough discussion on various aspects of our language. It helped open my eyes to some things I hadn't thought of and I felt so much was being articulated that I myself have been unable to articulate in the past. It often showed more than one side to various discussions which helped me understand the issue in its entirety. It was interesting to explore various mindsets surrounding one issue and different kinds of the same issue.
It took me a while to read but everytime I read some I felt so satisfied and it never failed to give me something to think about (I'm still thinking about it now), I've also brought up a couple of topics discussed in this books to people I know and it has led to several interesting discussions.
Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for sending me this book and allowing me to explore non-fiction more!

I guess I expected more from this book. It was informative (in some aspects) and in others it just felt... hollow.

I studied English Language in sixth form and although I decided not to study is further at university, I still have an interest in linguistics. I actually quite enjoyed this book as it refreshed some of the things I was already aware of whilst teaching me more.

This is the kind of book that could make the world a better place.

It is a catalogue of all the hurtful things we humans can say to other humans and hurt them deeply. Against their race, their appearance, their sexual orientation, their age and more, we humans have invented a lot of mean phrases that are the bases of so much hurt and abuse. This book navigates all of these and shades a light on how we should approach each person in order to be mindful of their feelings.

While this is a very necessary book, it is not an easy read. I appreciate it only mentions one extreme case that was based on verbal abuse for each kind of discrimination, it keeps a balance on realizing words are so easy to slip but their effect can be tremendous.

The beauty of this book lies in the fact that it doesn't offer easy answers or recipes, but it goes deeper, to the root, to the specific need of a certain group of people to make the reader understand what is best to be said. It emphasizes the fact that many words have a certain history and many should not be used any more, highlighting the values on which one should base every interaction.

I also appreciate the conclusion that wraps up emphatically and beautifully the necessity of measuring our words when dealing with other fellow people. I highly recommend this book and hope at least parts of it will be studied in schools and trainings. A true tool to make this world a better place for us all.

I was excited to read this and that may be why it didn't live up to my high expectations. The author's writing was good, but there was just something missing from this book. I felt like the author spent too much time focused on providing offensive examples versus focusing on the ways they affect us.

This was a truly disappointing read. I think discussions of language and its role in prejudice and discrimination is both important and interesting, but it's hard to think of a worse way to convey that. Stollznow essentially just lists offensive words with smatterings of contexts and the occasional fun fact. There's little here that adds anything to conversations about language-- the people who will be excited to read it will learn almost nothing new, and the people with the most to learn will just gather longer lists of shitty ways to talk about other people.

While I agree that we all need to examine out language, I didn't actually learn anything new here. I'm not sure what the author's goal was, but perhaps I'm not the target audience.

“I’m not a racist, but... You look good, for your age... She was asking for it... You’re crazy... That’s so gay... Have you ever wondered why certain language has the power to offend?"

Well yes, yes I did. 🕵🏻‍♂️

Lately I’ve been noticing a lot of comments criticizing the ‘outrage culture’ in social media, especially under posts that are aimed to raise awareness on issues. These comments suggest that we need to ‘stop being offended so easily,’ and the idea that people have different perceptions of what is worth being offended for is exactly what this book is about!

Stollznow writes, "It is argued that being offended is a choice. That offence is taken, not given. It is said that in a free society people have the right to offend but nobody has the right to be offended. If you are offended then that is your problem."

This is so true… Today, with the increased use of social media and other technological platforms, we are more connected than ever. And although this is often a good thing, we shouldn’t forget about the flip side of the coin, and that is the fact that we are also more polarized than ever. People are finding themselves a sense of community online, forming groups, friendships, discovering themselves, figuring out their identities. But people also spread hate, negativity and ignorance, sometimes even without meaning to. Simple comments or “likes” have so much power nowadays; they can deteriorate someone’s mental health, and even influence the fate of a whole minority/group. This is exactly why language is more important today than ever.

But how can certain language be offensive for some and not for others? This book focuses on many different examples of ‘derogatory phrases, insults, slurs, stereotypes, tropes and more that make up linguistic discrimination,’ and explains how these elements have changed throughout time, influenced by historical, political and social events.

It was interesting to learn about linguistics in this way. I really enjoyed seeing how much history some words or labels have, and it certainly made me hesitant to use them. I always knew language was powerful, and that most words were more than “just words,” but I never considered the “why” or “how” of this.

Each chapter centers around a different -ism, a different type of prejudice: race, gender, sexuality, religion, disability, physical appearance, and age. I loved that the book was written in this way! I usually get overwhelmed by non-fiction books because I feel bombarded with random examples and facts from various sources that the author included just to prove a point, but this book presents information in a systematic and eloquent way. I never felt overwhelmed at all, and I certainly learned a lot from it.

This book certainly changed the way I see language, especially in the age of social media where politics is a bigger part of our daily lives than ever.

Will I be reading more books like this in the future? Probably not anytime soon, this book was more than enough for me to get introduced to the topic/idea at hand. Do I regret reading it? Absolutely not! Would I recommend it? I would, especially to those who are looking for a non-fiction read on linguistics that is super relevant to their everyday lives!

I appreciated this insightful look at how language can divide and even attempt to defile identity. I also love the possibility this text opens for thinking critically about what is said in terms of empowerment and the work we all do in finding the best ways to value one another. Truly informative.

The author really did her homework on this one. Very well researched and well presented. A good read. I think this could be a good pick for a book club. Would be interesting to get different views on what was read. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.

A very deep dive into potentially offensive language. I really appreciated all the thought and research that went into this book.