Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language
by Seth Lerer.

Aging Crime History (non-USA) Language and Linguistics Natural History Philosophy Political Science Psychology Spirituality USA Modern History

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Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language by Seth Lerer. See also: Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication by Adrian Akmajian et al.

Far from the Madding Gerund and other dispatches from the Language Log (2006) by Mark Liberman and Geoffrey K. Pullum. Reprint of over 100 blog entries by linguists Liberman, Pullum, and colleagues first published as irreverent-yet-informed, casual-yet-cogent, fascist-yet-funny blog entries at the Language Log.

Chapters of Inventing English

Chapters:

1. Caedmon learns to sing: Old English and the origins of poetry.
2. From Beowulf to Wulfstan: The language of Old English Literature.
3. In this year: The politics of language and the end of Old English.
4. From Kingdom to Realm: Middle English in a French world.
5. Lord of this language: Chaucer's world.
6. I is as ille a millere as are ye: Middle English dialects.
7. The Great Vowel Shift and the changing character of English.
8. Chancery, Caxton, and the making of English prose.
9. I do, I will: Shakespeare's English.
10. A universal hubbub wild: new words and worlds in Early Modern English.
11. Visible speech: The orthoepists and the origins of Standard English.
12. A harmless drudge: Samuel Johnson and the making of the Dictionary.
13. Horrid, hooting stanzas: Lexicography and literature in American English.
    Fingers Webster as the prescriber of American English, through his paring and respelling of British English in his dictionary.
14. Antses in the sugar: dialect and regionalism in American English.
15. Hello, Dude: Mark Twain and the making of the American Idiom.
16. Ready for the funk: African American English and its impact.
17. Pioneers through an untrodden forest: The Oxford English Dictionary and its readers.
18. Listening to Private Ryan: War and language.
19. He speaks in your voice: Everybody's English.

Concludes with:

• Appendix: English sounds and their representation.
• 6-page Glossary. [See also our glossary.]
• 12 pages of References and suggestions for further reading.
• Acknowledgments
• Index

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