A really fascinating read into the peculiarities of linguistics. It mainly looked at the English language but also into other languages and how languages have evolved over time. A brilliant book.

I love linguistics, so I may be a bit biased, but I adored this book. I love reading about the nitty gritty details of languages and how they got that way. I learned a lot of new things from this book, and Jones dove into some topics I had never even pondered before. I appreciate that he often gave examples in many languages, not just English, including languages I had never even heard of.

Thank you, NetGalley and Elliott & Thompson for the ARC.

This book was absolutely fascinating! I knew from the blurb it sounded interesting but I enjoyed it even more than I expected! The way it was written was excellent. Paul managed to stick a lot of humour in there which made it really fun to read too. Even if you never really thought you were particularly interested in language it would be an enjoyable read. I'm going to be thinking about the facts in this for a long time and telling them to whoever will listen (I already made my husband start reading it).
I loved the way it was split up into 20 questions so each section covered a different aspect (although some had crossovers/similarities) and it wasn't just one long book of information. It made me think of a longer, more fleshed out version of the language facts Susie Dent gives you on Countdown! Sadly it did not tell me how to properly express how amazing this book is. But it did cover a wide range of topics, from why certain words are what they are to unconventional spellings, the alphabet and even how our brain handles learning and understanding language.
This really was an excellent book that I thoroughly enjoyed and think you will too!

I don't know why I geek out over the ins and outs of language like this, as it is the opposite of what I do for a living. Maybe it's a nice complement for something that I don't get from a technical line of work. If you're into detail after details about why the English language - spoken, written, and even punctuation - is the way it is, you'll like this. I was surprised about 3/'4 of the way through when the topic changed from languages to language. What I mean is, all discussion of how the English language go to be the way it is stopped, and the author embarked on a lengthy discussion of the neurological aspects of language. It was interesting enough, but not as absorbing as the first 3/4, which is what I had come for. He ends ends with a discussion of hand gestures people use while taking, which seemed further afield. Again, it was interesting enough but seemed out of scope. It also ended abruptly, almost mid-discussion, with no wrap-up given.

You may be the reader who wants all of this content, and I will say I learned a little from the latter 1/4. For me, that content wasn't what I came for and seemed to slow things down for me. All in all, a good read and I will seek out the author's other titles to see what I can find.

Why is this a question is a very interesting book. I love books on language and this book fills the gap between the very readable Susie Dent style book and the totally unreadable scholarly works. It's both scholarly and very readable. Not every chapter grabbed me, but plenty of the book did engage me. A very enjoyable read.

This is a book to dip into. In short chapters, the author Paul Anthony Jones describes the origin of English and how it developed from Anglo-Saxon, through the medieval 'Great Vowel Shift' to modern times. He makes brief comparisons with other languages that, for example, have many more differing styles, depending on what you're talking about and to whom. Then there are those that have not abandoned giving genders to inanimate objects (la table, der Tisch, etc). German also shows the differences in using capitalisation and diacritics in writing, such as in das Mädchen, and Jones outlines the history of writing from ancient times.

As a mongrel language, English has both been simplified and become more complex over time, as the importing of new people and new words has led to an enormous vocabulary and a richness of idioms that are stumbling blocks for learners. For the pleasure of any general reader who is fascinated by language, Jones sheds light on its many oddities. And of course, for English at least, the journey goes on…

I loved this book. Although some of the information was very detailed, it was also clearly presented in a conversational tone. The subject matter is fascinating and presented with a good deal of humour. Jones uses a lot of examples to make his points. This book is well worth reading. Thank you to Netgalley and Elliott & Thompson for the advance reader copy.