I'm partial to Bill Bryson's writing to start with - I enjoy his subtle and not-so-subtle snark. As an expat who often gets comments about her accent, word choice, or idiom use and is sometimes forced to defend the same, I've become interested in the English language across different cultures, so I...
Twenty years from publication, some of it is probably outdated, and Bryson was never a linguist, so it isn't definitive. It's just delightful, which is why I have to read it again every decade or so. Personal copy
The Mother Tongue is the story of the evolution of the English language, from its humble beginnings as a Germanic tongue to what it has evolved into over the centuries.So, Bill Bryson + cheap equals insta-buy for me, apparently. Too bad even Bill Bryson couldn't make this terribly entertaining.I hav...
This is one memorable beginning to a book on language on page 1:Warning to motorists in Tokyo:"When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigour".Made me laugh out loud.The book gives...
Delightfully written with hilarious real-life examples of misunderstandings due to misinterpretation of languages, and anecdotes that complement its chapters. Starts off strong, but sort of loses its momentum as the book nears the end and becomes more disjointed. Still a worthy and rather quick read...
Bill Bryson writes not only non-fantasy and/or romance, but non-fiction. I have read several of his travelogues, and his musings on living in the U.K., the U.S. and was greatly entertained. As a language teacher and an eager student of languages myself, I honestly don't know why it took me so long t...
I enjoyed this book very much. It's a pretty entertaining account of various aspects of the history of the English language. It's written in Bill Bryson's dry, wry style, which makes it a quick and easy read. Full of fascinating tidbits about language. Since reading it, however, I've learned that at...
I picked this up thinking that Bryson had, in my experience, always been entertaining, witty and informative and that this was a topic of much interest to me, so how could I go wrong?Well, a sample of two is not enough to go on, apparently because this turned out disappointing, for two primary reaso...
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