- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Profile Books Ltd (Oct 13 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1846684277
- ISBN-13: 978-1846684272
- Product Dimensions: 20 x 13.6 x 3.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 399 g
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#307,035 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #51 in Books > Nonfiction > Education > Reference > Words & Language > Etymology
- #92 in Books > Reference > Words & Language > Etymology
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"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
Product 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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Logophiles will enjoy this book, Jan 8 2012
By Ralph Blumenau - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Story of English in One Hundred Words (Hardcover)
Like the two volumes of Foyle's Philavery which I have reviewed on Amazon earlier, this volume, by an author who has written twelve other books about the English language, makes another pleasant and entertaining gift for logophiles. Here, too, you come across some words (bone-house, bodgery, dragsman, mipela, doobry, bagonize, chillax), though nothing like as many as in the Philavery volumes - but then the purpose of this book is different: it is to show when familiar words first appeared, how in some cases the spelling has changed, how words have evolved over the years and how new words - some ephemeral, some enduring - are constantly being coined. It may not be all that interesting to discover when a word was first used, and again only a few of those evolutions - like how "glamour" evolved from "grammar" or what "lunch" originally meant - are surprising. Crystal has collected many modern coinages - acronyms, abbreviations, slang - some of which are familiar (especially those deriving from the internet), while others will not be - Obamabots, for example: people who robot-like support Barack Obama, for instance. There are also several references to regional words, used only in parts of the United Kingdom. He also has passages on American English, Australian English, pidgin English etc.Although there are 100 sections, each with one word as its title, in fact Crystal uses many of them as triggers to talk about a great many other words. So, to give just one example, in the article headed "lakh" we also have references to "godown", "bungalow", "dungaree", "guru" and no fewer than 50 other words which English has borrowed from Indian or Arabic, or which Indian English has invented. So there is a lot of information in this book, and Crystal's enthusiasm, breadth of knowledge, and ruminations about language are very engaging.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A quick read, and a must read, May 3 2012
By Bryan Kerr "BSK" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Story of English in 100 Words (Hardcover)
I picked this book up the other day while on one of my numerous pilgrimages to Barnes and Noble. I was in the philosophy section and this book caught my eye in passing. I picked it up, briefly flipped through its pages, and brought it up to the counter; I'm happy I did. Crystal's book was a pleasure to read. This book is a series of 100 brief lessons on how words come into the English language, and how they evolve. These lessons are introduced by a word that aptly fits the description of the lesson being illustrated. An example is Debt (page 105-106). Crystal calls this section "spelling reform." Why does the word "debt" have an unpronounced -b- in it? Crystal traces this to an attempt to intellectualize words during a resurgence of Latin and Greek. Originally, English adopted the word without the -b- but a later attempt to Latinize words brought the -b- back. Few were ever so pretentious as to demand the pronunciation of -b- though some have tried. The purpose here wasn't to change the pronunciation of the word but to make it more academic. This is just an example of one of the one hundred language lessons that Crystal introduces. This was a wonderful read, and a rather quick one. I would highly recommend this book to kith and kin. Its cheap price makes it that much more desirable.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining and enlightening book about about the history and development of the English language, April 29 2012
By Ex-pat Brit - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Story of English in 100 Words (Hardcover)
David Crystal's book is a series of 100 essays that launch from one of 100 select words. For example, "Garage" - word #76 - is subtitled "a pronunciation problem (20th century)" and the essay discusses variation in pronunciation. Each essay is between 2 and 3 pages long, so this is a perfect bathroom reader. Each chapter is independent, so you can flip to just about any page and start reading another essay. The book is gentle and pleasant reading, and and enjoyable way to learn more about the English language and its ongoing development.Crystal begins his short history of English words by noting the Germanic origins of the language, even though the actual name of the language was not recording until the 10th century (#13 English). He looks at loan words (e.g., #6 street from Latin, #12 brock from Celtic and #20 skirt from Norse) and how words reflect changing views of the world (e.g., #4 loaf and #7 mead from Anglo-Saxon to #17 pork). International contacts changed the language (e.g., #33 taffeta and #39 potato). Of course, the Americas changed English with the introduction of American-Indian words (e.g., #45 skunk) and the development of its own culture (#58 Americanism). Of course, when English visits any new location, it is going to pick up new vocabulary (e.g., #48 lakh from India and #62 trek from Africa - to Star Trek!). English exhibits the creativity of its speakers, who loved to play with words (#9 riddle) and coin new expressions (#4 undeaf) and invent new words (from #83 blurb to today's #97 muggle, beloved of Harry Potter fans and geocachers). Words offer insights into how the structure of society (#65 lunch - with dinner ladies still serving school lunches in England) and progress in science (#75 DNA) and technology (#65 hello - which came about from the use of the telephone).
I am sure everyone no-one reading this review would be uninterested in the subject, but it would make no sense to be disinterested (#54) - thanks to Dr. Johnson. This book is absolutely wicked (#25), and not merely OK (#71). LOL (#94). So don't dilly-dally (#56), and go and get your copy today!
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