Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue

The Untold History of English

By John McWhorter
(Gotham, Paperback, 9781592404940, 256pp.)

Publication Date: October 27, 2009

Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Hardcover

Categories: Etymology

Selected by Indie Booksellers for the December 2008 Indie Next List

“John McWhorter's Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue offers very interesting ideas about the history of the English language and why it has come to be the way it is today. This very readable book will make you think about English in a new way.”

-- Catherine Carpenter, Cate's Books and Stuff, Louisiana, MO

Description

A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, this work focuses on its strange and wonderful grammar. Delving into provocative topics and more, "Our Magnificent Bastard Language" distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history.

About the Author

John McWhorter is the author of the bestseller Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America, The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language, and four other books. He is associate professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a contributing editor to The City Journal and The New Republic. He has been profiled in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and has appeared on Dateline NBC, Politically Incorrect, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

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