Chapter 7 Varieties of English Summary and Analysis

Bryson begins this chapter with some of the more humorous examples of the ways English is spoken in regions throughout the world. The emphasis is that all English speakers can understand each other despite the differences in vocabulary and pronunciation. One of the interesting ideas that he introduces is that English in the United Kingdom is more varied than it is in the United States, though he goes on to present evidence both for and against this idea.

Bryson attempts to divide the United States into distinct accents but recognizes the futility of such a task. The regional accents overlap each other and provide smaller and smaller areas where people all speak with the same accent. Instead, Bryson argues, there are regional trends where there are common accent features but no large region contains speakers...