Made in America

You might think that I've stopped reading, what with no more book updates lately.  That is far from the truth, which is that I've been wanting to write a summary of this book for so long that I've finished 3 books since.  All in good time.

See, I was waiting until I had the book with me to review Made in America by Bill Bryson.  You may be familiar with Bryson books, which are often humorous traveloguey type books.  But rather than being straight humor, he likes to add in lots of detail about whatever he finds along the way.  This book is no different.  Made in America claims to be "an informal history of the English language in the United States".  I suppose it is, but I would have bolded and italicized the word informal.  (In fact, I just did!)  Bryson heads off where ever his interest takes him on minutae about words that are used or invented in America.  This is a good thing, because otherwise, he would have spent the whole book just listing words and when they first appeared: to scoot (1841), highfalutin (1848), underdog (1887), rip-roaring (1834), sitting pretty (1910), dope fiend (1896), jet lag (1966).

But, it's all worth it, just for Bill to provide us all with this nugget of information in the section about candy: "Equally improbable was the Chicken Dinner candy bar, so called because it was supposed to engender the feeling of well-being provided by a steaming roast chicken dinner.  Though few people were able to make the leap of imagination necessary to equate a 5-cent chocolate peanut roll with a well-balance meal, the Chicken Dinner sold well and survived into th 1960s."