The Story of English in One Hundred Words

Description

This title offers an eye-opening tour of the English language through the ages from the Britain's leading linguistics expert. In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistic expert, David Crystal, draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century ('roe', in case you are wondering). Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient words ('loaf') to cutting edge ('twittersphere') and spanning the indispensable words that shape our tongue ('and', 'what') to the more fanciful ('fopdoodle'), Crystal takes us along the winding byways of language via the rude, the obscure and the downright surprising.

David Crystal is the foremost expert on English, and honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. He has written many books and published articles in fields ranging from forensic linguistics and ELT to the liturgy and Shakespeare.

"The best word book to come down the pike in many a moon. There are "Eureka!" moments in every chapter. An ingenious idea, and only David Crystal could have pulled it off. He's a marvel (but then we knew that already)."--Patricia T. O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman, authors of "Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language", and bloggers at Grammarphobia.com