The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language

Beginning of article

The Adventure of

English: The Biography

of a Language

Melvyn Bragg, Sceptre,

2004, 8.99 [pounds sterling]

ISBN 0340829931

Lost for Words:

The Mangling and

Manipulating of the

English Language

John Humphrys, Hodder, 2005,

8.99 [pounds sterling]

ISBN 0340836598

Beyond Words: How

Language Reveals the

Way We Live Now

John Humphrys, Hodder, 2007,

7.99 [pounds sterling]

ISBN 0340923768

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In the Introduction to his book The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language, Melvyn Bragg refers to the 'tradition of the permitted amateur' that exists in the history of many academic disciplines--to the dabblers who have made their contribution to fields of knowledge that range from local history to ornithology. Debates about the English language have, of course, attracted more than their fair share of enthusiastic amateurs, and the recent explosion in books about language aimed at a general readership--the linguistics equivalent of popular science--attests to both the existence of a …