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The Mother Tongue - English And How It Got That Way

Bill Bryson · 4 HN comments
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Amazon Summary
“Vastly informative and vastly entertaining…A scholarly and fascinating book.” — Los Angeles Times With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson 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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In case anyone is interested in the history of the English Language, Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue (https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-English-How-That/dp/038...) is a pretty easy and informative read.

Actually had it set as required reading in high school English of all things.

Mediterraneo10
Oh, God no. Bill Bryson is not a linguist and has no real grounding in the field, and "The Mother Tongue" has been criticized for decades for its abundance of factual errors, misunderstandings, and urban myths. There is a significant mistake on nearly every page of the book. Some of the reviews on the Amazon product listing that you link to discuss this in detail.
Veratyr
I apologize, I wasn't aware of that. I read it in high school so didn't hear much about it elsewhere.

Can you recommend a good, approachable alternative?

ThinkingGuy
Another recommendation: the History of English Podcast, by Kevin Stroud. http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/
Balgair
I'll add another one: 'The Story of English' from a Canadian bloke here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj9jJiPwsp0
You would enjoy Bill Bryson's book Mother Tongue. At one point (several hundred years ago) English was going through a period of simplification and rationalization but it was also during that period that dictionaries, newspapers etc become popular. Consequently some words had already become consistent and some hadn't and we are somewhat stuck with poor timing. http://www.amazon.com/The-Mother-Tongue-English-That/dp/0380...

Esperanto is an attempt at a equal international language for all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

Because English and English speakers are happy to adapt and change, the simplification is happening. Look at text messaging where superfluous extra words and letters get dropped, as does case. Even Hollywood is careful to keep language simple in their popular movies aimed at a worldwide audience.

Datonomics
Thank you for the recommendations. How do you think English speaker would respond to a version of English which had changes like: Each sound had its own letter and all spelling was phonetic?
I was referencing toddlers and how that age group learns. The word toddlers is not condescending, it's simply the most appropriate word for the age group in question.

> I don't see how it holds any more weight than your argument from antiquity

The dictionary is nothing but "argument from antiquity", as would be the conventional definition of "correct usage", in contrast to the "many people doing it wrong makes it right!" definition you disavowed, skipped a graph, then repeated.

Prepositions are not "essentially arbitrary" even when used with metaphysical concepts. Particular prepositions work with particular types of concepts, and curiously, end up quite similarly used among a variety of cultures and languages. In English, for example, is the concept something you can possess, or a process that happens to you? If you consider other things that couple with "on" or "by", you'll see what I mean.

Certainly English is charming, and rapidly evolving. You've likely read Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue", but if not, you might enjoy it.

http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-English-How-That/dp/0380...

A good book which also covers this (and is quite entertaining) is Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson.

http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-Bill-Bryson/dp/038071543...

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