The Story of English: How the English Language Conquered the World - Hardcover

Philip Gooden is the author of The Guinness Guide to Better English and the editor of The Mammoth Book of Literary Anecdotes.

With thousands of languages on the planet, why has English eclipsed all others as the global tongue? Gooden answers this question by tracing the evolution of English from the medieval era, when swarms of Angles and Saxons overwhelmed the Celts, to the twenty-first century, when an invasion of previously taboo English obscenities swept past traditionally oriented editors. Readers learn about how the bookish Alfred the Great protected not only his realm but also his language from Viking invaders; how William the Conqueror brutally vanquished England’s armies but allowed England’s language to survive; and how such poets as Chaucer and Shakespeare let loose a linguistic exuberance later disciplined and standardized by lexicographer Samuel Johnson. But Gooden recognizes that it is finally the vibrantly American version of the language—the language of Jefferson, Lincoln, Kennedy, and Obama—that has not only preserved English’s worldwide primacy since the collapse of the British Empire but also has enriched it with new cultural possibilities. A thoroughly engaging historical introduction to a dynamic language. --Bryce Christensen