Why do we say "I am reading a catalog" instead of "I read a catalog"? Why do we say "do" at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, author McWhorter distills hundreds of years of lore into one lively history. Covering the little-known Celtic and Welsh influences on English, the impact of the Viking raids and the Norman Conquest, and the Germanic invasions that started it all during...

"This is a book about bupkes: nothing, zero, zilch. An empty garden, an empty bench at the playground, an empty soup bowl all seem like nothing - bupkes! The funny thing is that bupkes may mean nothing - but it can feel like everything"--

Discover words to surprise, delight, and enamor. Learn terms for the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees, for dancing awkwardly but with relish, and for the look shared by two people who each wish the other would speak first. Mak loves words, and her brief compilation of words will surprise, delight, and enamor. Do you practice Tsundoku? It is a Japanese noun for the letting books pile up unread after your buy them. Or perhaps you Balter....

"This is a study of French words and phrases which, untranslated, have entered the English lexicon. Historians calculate that English, since 1500, has borrowed more words from French than from any other modern foreign language. While it has naturalized many of these words, some have visibly retained their foreign roots, leading varied lives in the English-speaking world while eluding translation and resisting integration. Carrying traces of their...

"On the boundary of what the ancient Greeks and Romans considered the habitable world, Ireland was a land of myth and mystery in classical times. Classical authors frequently portrayed its people as savages - even as cannibals and devotees of incest - and evinced occasional uncertainty as to the island's shape, size, and actual location. Unlike neighboring Britain, Ireland never knew Roman occupation, yet literary and archaeological evidence prove...

Explores the global diversity hidden in the English language by explaining the origins of words like "ukulele," "zero," and "safari."