Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries – Kory Stamper
There are some books you didn’t even know you needed until you read them.
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Linguistics
Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever – John McWhorter
John McWhorter is a favorite of mine, so I am admittedly biased. But I enjoyed it.
read more Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever – John McWhorter
The Story of English in 100 Words – David Crystal
David Crystal wrote a nice little coffee-table of linguistic factoid.
The Mother Tongue – Bill Bryson
Reading this felt like a review course, but maybe that isn’t always a bad thing.
Talk on the Wild Side – Lane Greene
I seem not to be tiring of books on linguistics. It may be because books like this are just so interesting that I don’t mind going over the same information over again.
How Language Began – Daniel Everett
Daniel Everett’s ‘How Language Began’ might as well be called ‘why Chomsky is wrong.’ It’s also a very compelling argument.
What Language is – John McWhorter
John McWhorter has a gift for making an understanding of language easy and accessible.
Talking Back, Talking Black – John McWhorter
Few topics are as controversial as the state of AAVE in the USA.
Words on the move – John McWhorter
John McWhorter knows what he is talking about, and in this volume he goes over much of what people not only do not understand about language, but what many so desperately need to learn about it.
Failures in Polymathy 