George > Recent Status Updates

Mixed feelings so far. I don't get most of the references (clothing brands, American sports, hip hop references). Although people were jerks to him, he also comes across as one too. I also find it hard to sympathise when he got kicked out of 5 different private schools due to his mad bant. He comes from a rich background and tries to reject it, while still reaping the benefits.

"I always liked sneakers. You had to look fresh playing ball, but I didn't always have the illest pair."
Just to give you an idea of the writing style. Although I'm not mad crazy about the writing, it does make the book more down to earth. I like Eddie Huang due to him combining two of my passions: China and food

Been a bit busy the last few days so haven't been reading as much :(

Now examining to what extent the Vikings actually had on our language. Although when they landed originally in the 700s, most likely Old English and Old Norse would have been somewhat mutually intelligible.

Now examining to what extent the Vikings actually had on our language. Although when they landed originally in the 700s, most likely Old English and Old Norse would have been somewhat mutually intelligible.

He shows that the Anglo-Saxons arriving in Celtic Britain post 'Rexit' (Roman exit),their closely related dialects forming a nascent English language would have then had this language spoken by native Celts who would have had L1 transference,seen in many non native speakers of English today. Mainly grammar but he posits that some etymology unknown words could actually be found in the Celtic languages

Loving this book. As someone from the island of Ireland, I speak in some ways a 'dialect' of English (Hiberno English) that is widely accepted to have not just words taken from Irish language, but the -grammar- too. So it is less of a leap for me to accept McWhorter's point that British Celtic languages like Welsh influenced early English grammar.

Already this book is different from the last one. Suggesting English is not special because of its word changes over its history, seen in many other languages, but rather it's grammar changes which makes it stand out even fro its close relatives. I also like he is seemingly not a monolingual linguist.

John McWhorter is another name that has continuously cropped up when looking for language / linguistic books. I first heard of this book when mentioned in 'the history of English' podcast as being one of the first books to show how present Celtic words are in English but also why they may be so few. This had me interested so I'm glad to finally start it! :)

Almost finished the book but as the words become more modern with 'LOL' etc I'm beginning to lose interest. There's not much to say on the word but instead similar cases like the development of ROFL and LMAO. I preferred the more in depth word origins in earlier chapters that really gave a good overview of that words historical usage. 100 is a nice round number but I feel a few chapters could have been cut.

There's some overlap with the Pinker book I read before. Particularly in their explanation of the two interpretation of the word 'disinterested'.

Every chapter is a whole word's etymology. Just got to the etymology of 'arse'

Didn't hear of this author before a friend showed me the trailer of a film based on this short story. I was intrigued to find out its a sci fi story most relevant to me: an expert linguist gets called upon by the military to make first contact with a mysterious alien race orbiting Earth. Should be a quick read but looking forward to finishing it.

Didn't hear of this author before a friend showed me the trailer of a film based on this short story. I was intrigued to find out its a sci fi story most relevant to me: an expert linguist gets called upon by the military to make first contact with a mysterious alien race orbiting Earth. Should be a quick read but looking forward to finishing it.