Book description
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. In
this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language,
linguistics 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).
"'Crystal's book is full of distractions and delights' (Daily
Express) 'One of [Crystal's] best... it builds gradually into a kind of
linguistic tapestry, packed with abstruse information, wonderfully
readable' (Spectator) 'If the history of language is a sort of
labyrinth, David Crystal is an excellent guide' (The Age,
Australia)" 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. In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous
language, linguistics 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).
