§'Wonderful. You finish the book more alive than ever to the enduring mystery and miracle of that thing that makes us most human' STEPHEN FRY
'Most popular books on language dumb down; Shariatmadari's smartens things up, and is all the more entertaining for it' THE SUNDAY TIMES, a Book of the Year
'A meaty, rewarding and necessary read' GUARDIAN
'Fascinating and thought-provoking . . . crammed with weird and wonderful facts . . . for anyone who delights in linguistics it's a richly rewarding read' MAIL ON SUNDAY
- A word's origin doesn't tell you what it means today
- There are languages that change when your mother-in-law is present
- The language you speak could make you more prone to accidents
- There's a special part of the brain that produces swear words
Taking us on a mind-boggling journey through the science of language, linguist David Shariatmadari uncovers the truth about what we do with words, exploding nine widely-held myths about language while introducing us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics.
Hinweis: Dieser Artikel kann nur an eine deutsche Lieferadresse ausgeliefert werden.
'Most popular books on language dumb down; Shariatmadari's smartens things up, and is all the more entertaining for it' THE SUNDAY TIMES, a Book of the Year
'A meaty, rewarding and necessary read' GUARDIAN
'Fascinating and thought-provoking . . . crammed with weird and wonderful facts . . . for anyone who delights in linguistics it's a richly rewarding read' MAIL ON SUNDAY
- A word's origin doesn't tell you what it means today
- There are languages that change when your mother-in-law is present
- The language you speak could make you more prone to accidents
- There's a special part of the brain that produces swear words
Taking us on a mind-boggling journey through the science of language, linguist David Shariatmadari uncovers the truth about what we do with words, exploding nine widely-held myths about language while introducing us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics.
Hinweis: Dieser Artikel kann nur an eine deutsche Lieferadresse ausgeliefert werden.
Wonderful. David Shariatmadari wears his deep learning with such an admirable and alluring lightness of touch. He brilliantly swats away the pesky 'language guardian' flies, whose misbegotten pedantries and ignorant persnicketiness are the real threats to living language. You finish the book more alive than ever to the enduring mystery and miracle of that thing that makes us most human, the gift of language that was bestowed upon us so astonishingly recently in evolutionary time and that has made us everything that we are . . . for good or ill STEPHEN FRY