The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

Bill Bryson

3.91

41,804 ratings by Goodreads

9781504715218: The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

ISBN 10: 1504715217 ISBN 13: 9781504715218

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers and Blackstone Audio, 2015

[Read by Stephen McLaughlin]

With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson -- the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent -- brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience, and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't) to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.

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Review:

Who would have thought that a book about English would be so entertaining? Certainly not this grammar-allergic reviewer, but The Mother Tongue pulls it off admirably. Bill Bryson--a zealot--is the right man for the job. Who else could rhapsodize about "the colorless murmur of the schwa" with a straight face? It is his unflagging enthusiasm, seeping from between every sentence, that carries the book.

Bryson displays an encyclopedic knowledge of his topic, and this inevitably encourages a light tone; the more you know about a subject, the more absurd it becomes. No jokes are necessary, the facts do well enough by themselves, and Bryson supplies tens per page. As well as tossing off gems of fractured English (from a Japanese eraser: "This product will self-destruct in Mother Earth."), Bryson frequently takes time to compare the idiosyncratic tongue with other languages. Not only does this give a laugh (one word: Welsh), and always shed considerable light, it also makes the reader feel fortunate to speak English.

From the Publisher:

8 1.5-hour cassettes

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