This early work Otto Jespersen was originally published in 1905 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Growth and Structure of the English Language' is a scholarly linguistic study. Otto Jespersen was born in Randers, Denmark on 16th July 1869. He worked as an academic at Copenhagen University and rose to the position of professor of English, a post he held from 1893 to 1925. Jespersen made a considerable contribution...

A tour of the English language from the beginning of the alphabet in 4000 BC to modern text messaging and emoticons.

Robert McCrum, coauthor of the best-selling book and television series The Story of English, shows how the language of the Anglo-American imperium has become the world's lingua franca--From vendor description.

"Lost origins of words revealed. We like to recount that goodbye started out as "god be with you," that whiskey comes from the Gaelic for "water of life," or that avocado originated as the Aztec word for "testicle." But there are many words with origins unknown, disputed, or so buried in old journals that they may as well be lost to the general public. In Origin Uncertain: Unraveling the Mysteries of Etymology, eminent etymologist Anatoly Liberman...

Presents a history of the English language, beginning with the Old English of the seventh century, through the Great Vowel Shift between the time of Chaucer and Shakespeare, and the later full emergence of modern English.

Library Journal: A tie-in for a nine-part television series to be broadcast over PBS beginning in September, this is a wide-ranging account of the travels and changes of the English tongue from its beginnings to tomorrow, from England to America to Australia to Africa and India and the Pacific. Despite an occasionally perceptible British bias, the authors have tried hard to paint a colorful, vivid picture of the many faces and varieties of English....

"An American linguist teaching in England explores the sibling rivalry between British and American English. "If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd sound like an American." "English accents are the sexiest." "Americans have ruined the English language." "Technology means everyone will have to speak the same English." Such claims about the English language are often repeated but rarely examined. Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line....