Changes

|title=The Story Of English In 100 Words

|sort=Story of English In 100 Words

|publisher=Profile Books

|date=October 2011

|summary=100 carefully selected words that tell us an awful lot about the English we speak today, this is a fun and fascinating book that would make a great gift too.

}}

Pegged as ''a unique history of the English language via the rude, the obscure and the downright surprising'' it certainly delivers on its promises. Focusing on 100 starter words (numbered so you don’t feel obliged to count them to check they’ve not made a mistake), you can trace the development of the language from the 5th century to present day in neat chronological order. I say ‘starter’ words because although each entry is titled singularly as ''roe'' or ''pork'' or ''dilly-dally'', the descriptions and explanations expand to take in many other words associated with, or in some way derived from, said starter words. So, in the chapter entitled ''Debt'', we segue into other words with mismatched spelling and pronunciation such as ''doubt'' and ''subtle'', have a neat reference to Shakespeare, and conclude with evidence of a time when ''fault'' rhymed with ''thought''.

Overall, this is a highly entertaining and informative book that is bursting with all those things you never knew you never knew. It’s an easy read that’s lovely and informal without being irritatingly familiar, would make a wonderful stocking filler and it going straight to the linguistics section of my bookshelf for a nice long stay. You'd have to be a ''fopdoodle'' not to give it a look. Quite simply, a remarkable book - but what else would you expect from a god?

[[How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning and Languages Live or Die by David Crystal]] is one of this god's earlier creations, and also falls on the Bookbag's stellar list of [[Top Ten Books About Language]]