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If, like me, you find the history of words a source of unending fascination and enjoy reading about language and languages, here are a few recent Kindle books for your consideration:

A Little Book of Language, by David Crystal. Yale University Press. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"...exhilarating romp through the mysteries and vagaries of language, from how infants acquire language to how many words the average adult knows (40,000) and slang (Linguists love collecting slang. It's a bit like collecting stamps)... Crystal smoothly boils down his vast knowledge about the peculiarities of spelling, grammar, and diction, and the influence of new kinds of linguistic style (computer language, texting) on language development. This is the perfect primer for anyone interested in the subject." - Publishers Weekly.
David Crystal is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor, and one of the world’s preeminent language specialists.

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, by Mignon Fogarty. Holt. Print Length: 240 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (56 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Written with the wit, warmth, and accessibility that the podcasts are known for, Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing covers the grammar rules and word-choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers. From 'between vs. among' and 'although vs. while' to comma splices and misplaced modifiers, Mignon offers memory tricks and clear explanations that will help readers recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules. Chock-full of tips on style, business writing, and effective e-mailing..." - Amazon.

Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language, by Robert McCrum. W. W. Norton & Company. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (3 reviews). Kindle edition $14.82. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"McCrum..., associate editor of Britain's Observer, surveys the latter-day apotheosis of English as the international language, observing Chinese English-language boot camps, Bangalore call centers, and the takeover of Britain's Man Booker prize by non-British novelists. But most of the book is a historical pageant of the English-speaking peoples as they assimilated, conquered, or enslaved foreigners and expropriated words and dialects under the leadership of statesmen/wordsmiths from King Alfred to Churchill and literary geniuses like Shakespeare and Twain. McCrum makes a pragmatic, happenstance case for the international popularity of English: the British Empire and American hegemony spread it around the planet, making it the obvious choice for a globalizing world's lingua franca..." - Publishers Weekly.

There's a Word for It: The Explosion of the American Language Since 1900, by Sol Steinmetz. Harmony. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"From the turn of the twentieth century to today, our language has grown from around 90,000 new words to some 500,000 - at least, that’s today’s best guesstimate (1936). What accounts for this quantum leap (1924)? In There’s a Word for It, language expert Sol Steinmetz takes us on a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (1949) joyride (1908) through our nation’s cultural history, as seen through the neato (1951) words and terms we’ve invented to describe it all. From the quaintly genteel days of the 1900s (when we first heard words such as nickelodeon, escalator, and, believe it or not, Ms.) through the Roaring Twenties (the time of flappers, jalopies, and bootleg booze) to the postwar ’50s (the years of rock ’n’ roll, beatniks, and blast-offs) and into the new millennium (with its blogs, Google, and Obamamania), this feast for word lovers is a boffo (1934) celebration of linguistic esoterica (1929)." - Amazon.

It's a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water. - Franklin P. Jones

Wordcatcher: An Odyssey into the World of Weird and Wonderful Words, by Phil Cousineau. Viva Editions. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Who knew that the great country of Canada is named for a mistake? How about 'bedswerver,' the best Elizabethan insult to hurl at a cheating boyfriend? By exploring the delightful back stories of the 250 words in Wordcatcher, readers are lured by language and entangled in etymologies. Author Phil Cousineau takes us on a tour into the obscure territory of word origins with great erudition and endearing curiosity. The English poet W. H. Auden was once asked to teach a poetry class, and when 200 students applied to study with him, he only had room for 20 of them. When asked how he chose his students, he said he picked the ones who actually loved words. So too, with this book - it takes a special wordcatcher to create a treasure chest of remarkable words and their origins, and any word lover will relish the stories that Cousineau has discovered." - Amazon.


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