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The Story of English in 100 Words
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)

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Author:
Crystal, David
Published:
St. Martin's Publishing Group 2012
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description

The world's foremost expert on the English language takes us on an entertaining and eye-opening tour of the history of our vernacular through the ages.
In The Story of English in 100 Words, an entertaining history of the world's most ubiquitous language, David Crystal draws on one hundred 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—'roe'—was written down on the femur of a roe deer in the fifth century. Featuring ancient words ('loaf'), cutting edge terms that relfect our world ('twittersphere'), indispensible words that shape our tongue ('and', 'what'), fanciful words ('fopdoodle') and even obscene expressions (the "c word"...), David Crystal takes readers on a tour of the winding byways of our language via the rude, the obscure and the downright surprising.

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Subjects
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Language Arts
Nonfiction
More Details
Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
03/27/2012
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781466805088
ASIN:
B006JJTGTW
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

David Crystal. (2012). The Story of English in 100 Words. St. Martin's Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

David Crystal. 2012. The Story of English in 100 Words. St. Martin's Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

David Crystal, The Story of English in 100 Words. St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2012.

MLA Citation (style guide)

David Crystal. The Story of English in 100 Words. St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2012.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 18:05:23
Date Updated:
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        DAVID CRYSTAL, is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. In 1995, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire for services to the English language. He lives in the United Kingdom.

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title
The Story of English in 100 Words
fullDescription

The world's foremost expert on the English language takes us on an entertaining and eye-opening tour of the history of our vernacular through the ages.
In The Story of English in 100 Words, an entertaining history of the world's most ubiquitous language, David Crystal draws on one hundred 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—'roe'—was written down on the femur of a roe deer in the fifth century. Featuring ancient words ('loaf'), cutting edge terms that relfect our world ('twittersphere'), indispensible words that shape our tongue ('and', 'what'), fanciful words ('fopdoodle') and even obscene expressions (the "c word"...), David Crystal takes readers on a tour of the winding byways of our language via the rude, the obscure and the downright surprising.

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      • source: 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
      • content: "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)."
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      • source: Publisher's Weekly
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        Starred review from January 16, 2012
        From pre-eminent British linguist Crystal (The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language) comes this delightful history of the words we use (and some we’ve forgotten) and how we came to use them. Neither a wordbook nor a linguistic history, Crystal emphasizes that his selections demonstrate how English—“a vacuum cleaner of a language”— developed by sweeping up words from other languages These “loanwords” range from “street” (from the Latin strata) to “dame” (with a complex history as an indicator of social status) from the French. Moving chronologically from “roe” (fifth century) to “Twittersphere (21st century), Crystal spells out each word’s origin; the word’s sometimes-roundabout journey to the present-day meaning is explored, and often grammatical conundrums are answered. Case in point: why is there a “b” in “debt,” as its origin was the French word dete (or dette)? Blame scholars who wanted sophistication and drew from the Latin debitum. Crystal also touches on the coining of new words when the mood strikes, citing famous examples in Shakespeare and Joyce as well as the crop of technology-inspired neologisms. Crystal’s enthusiasm for—and wealth of knowledge about—the ever-evolving English language makes this a must-read for word lovers.

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