Moderator Amy Bass with author Ben Yagoda
Cocktails & Conversation with Author Ben Yagoda on His New Book “Gobsmacked”
The audience was “Gobsmacked” when author Ben Yagoda came for Cocktails & Conversation at Alvin & Friends restaurant in New Rochelle. The event was the latest in the C & C series created by the New Rochelle Public Library Foundation to bring book lovers together. The evening started with mixing and mingling in the bar before the group moved to the private Roscoe Room to listen in on a discussion between Yagoda and moderator Amy Bass (a history professor and author who sits on the NRPL Foundation Board) about his latest book, a lighthearted look at British slang that has crept into the American English,
Ben Yagoda — a New Rochelle native — has published more than a dozen books (including Will Rogers: A Biography) and his blog, Not One-Off Britishisms, has been visited more than 3 million times. Since 2011, Yagoda has dutifully documented and collected hundreds of British expressions imported into American English: In his new book Yagoda splits them up into distinct categories (military slang, food and drink, sports, insults, and other bits and bobs), provides some historical and cultural context for their use, and denotes their level of penetration into American English at the end of each entry. The result is Gobsmacked. The British Invasion of American English, an entertaining deconstruction of the English language.
To learn more about the New Rochelle Public Library Foundation visit the website at www.nrplfoundation.org.