Author(s): Seth Lerer

Why doesn't anyone speak English anymore? As he responds to this frequently asked question, Lerer
challenges the notion that English was once a set of carefully preserved forms inherited from
linguistically correct ancestors. From seventh-century Northumbrian farmers wrapping their tongues
around words borrowed from Viking invaders to late-twentieth-century media executives sponsoring
word pranks to promote MTV episodes, English speakers have always adapted their idioms to fit
current needs. By revisiting pivotal points of language transformation, Lerer clarifies the ways
English users have rewoven the fabric of language. Readers hear, for instance, how Wulfstan forged
new Anglo-Saxon words in the white heat of his eleventh-century sermons, and they see how
sixteenth-century printers turned a wilderness of speech into a cultivated garden of print.
And what reader will not relish time spent with Mark.Twain as he grafts onto the language new
expressions still as raw as the American frontier? Lerer explains language changes so lucidly
and illustrates the process with such engaging anecdotes that nonspecialists will join scholars in
praising this remarkable linguistic investigation.

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