Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English

by John McWhorter

English’s Germanic relatives are like assorted varieties of deer—antelopes, springboks, kudu, and so on—antlered, fleet-footed, big-brown-eyed variations on a theme. English is some dolphin swooping around underwater, all but hairless, echolocating and holding its breath. Dolphins are mammals like deer: they give birth to live young and are warm-blooded. But clearly the dolphin has strayed from the basic mammalian game plan to an extent that no deer has.

English, however, is kinky. It has a predilection for dressing up like Welsh on lonely nights.