Sometimes what we say and write can lead to a great deal of misunderstanding and unintentional humour, as bestselling author and former school inspector Gervase Phinn shows in his book ‘Gervase Phinn’s Mangled English’, a humorous anthology of the mistakes, misprints, malapropisms and misunderstandings in the English language. It includes book requests (“Lionel Richie’s Wardrobe by Cecily Lewis”) and book titles (Handbook for the Limbless); people’s names (Nora Bone); proverbs (‘If he died with a face like that, nobody would wash the corpse’); spoonerisms (‘The British Broadcorping Castration’); classroom howlers (“A fibula is a small lie”); malapropisms (“She’s got a congenial disease”) and euphemisms (“I’m off to shed a tear for Nelson”); newspaper misprints (“New research into causes of dysexlia”); and epitaphs (‘He died in peace. His wife died first’).
Gervase Phinn leads a very full and busy life: he is a teacher, freelance lecturer, author, poet, school inspector and educational consultant. For fourteen years he taught in a range of schools in Yorkshire until, in 1984, he became general adviser for language development in Rotherham. Four years later he moved to North Yorkshire where he spent ten years as a school inspector, which has provided much of the material for his bestselling Dales books. He now teaches, lectures and directs courses throughout the country and abroad, and is in constant demand as a public speaker. Gervase Phinn is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the visiting professor of education at the University of Teesside and an honorary fellow of St Johns College, York. He is married with four grown-up children.
Matthew Phinn (illustrator) is a British artist specialising in landscape and abstract painting in watercolour and oil. His watercolours are characterised by their large scale and technique drawn from both traditional English landscape and elements of Japanese painting, where he lived and taught watercolour technique for over five years. Matthew has been selected for the national Japanese watercolour exhibition three times, was awarded the International Cultural Foundations prize in Hiroshima in 2006 and the Certificate of Merit in Tokyo in 2008. He is presently living and working in London.
About the Author
Gervase Phinn leads a very full and busy life: he is a teacher, freelance lecturer, author, poet, school inspector and educational consultant. For fourteen years he taught in a range of schools in Yorkshire until, in 1984, he became general adviser for language development in Rotherham. Four years later he moved to North Yorkshire where he spent ten years as a school inspector, which has provided much of the material for his bestselling Dales books. He now teaches, lectures and directs courses throughout the country and abroad, and is in constant demand as a public speaker. Gervase Phinn is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the visiting professor of education at the University of Teesside and an honorary fellow of St Johns College, York. He is married with four grown-up children.
Matthew Phinn (illustrator) is a British artist specialising in landscape and abstract painting in watercolour and oil. His watercolours are characterised by their large scale and technique drawn from both traditional English landscape and elements of Japanese painting, where he lived and taught watercolour technique for over five years. Matthew has been selected for the national Japanese watercolour exhibition three times, was awarded the International Cultural Foundations prize in Hiroshima in 2006 and the Certificate of Merit in Tokyo in 2008. He is presently living and working in London.
