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The Story of English

6 best books like The Story of English (Robert McCrum): The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English, The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention, The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of "Proper" English, from Shakespeare to South Park

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
AuthorSimon Winchester
ISBN0060839783
The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED, begun in 1857,...
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
AuthorDavid W. Anthony
ISBN0691058873
Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery...
From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature
AuthorRichard Ruland
ISBN0140144358
From Modernist/Postmodernist perspective, leading critics Richard Ruland (American) and Malcolm Bradbury (British) address questions of literary and cultural nationalism. They demonstrate that since the seventeenth century, American writing has reflected the political and historical...
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English
AuthorJohn McWhorter
ISBN1592403956
A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, focusing on our strange and wonderful grammar

Why do we say "I am reading a catalog" instead of "I read a catalog"? Why do we say "do" at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics...
The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention
AuthorGuy Deutscher
ISBN0805080120
Blending the spirit of Eats, Shoots & Leaves with the science of The Language Instinct, an original inquiry into the development of that most essential-and mysterious-of human creations: Language

Language is mankind's greatest invention-except, of course, that it was never invented."...
The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of "Proper" English, from Shakespeare to South Park
AuthorJack Lynch
ISBN0802717004
For language buffs and lexicographers, copy editors and proofreaders, and anyone who appreciates the connection between language and culture—the illuminating story of “proper English.”

In its long history, the English language has had many lawmakers—those who have tried to...
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