Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English by John McWhorterMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was worried this would be a rehash of McWhorter's other book, or of other books on the English language (I'm thinking mainly Melvin Bragg's "The Story of English"), but actually it had some very refreshing material.
I like his discussions on the useless "do" in English. ('Did you see that?' 'I don't like that' Etc.) and how it probably derives from the celtic.
I'm not sure i'm convinced of one of his examples of English uniqueness, stating how "I read" isn't really present tense because, when asked what they're doing, no one would reply "I read". I mean, that's true, but it doesn't seem unique to English, as he says it is. In Italian you would answer with the gerund (like with English) "sto leggendo", and in Chinese you would probably say something like ”我正在看書“ (so basically the gerund as well). Unless I understood it incorrectly.
Fascinating how "Going to" became a future tense. I also enjoyed his takedown of prescriptive grammarians and Sapir-Whorf adherents (although I imagine no linguists take that hypothesis seriously anymore, so it was probably directed to all the lay readers).
I'm also not sure I'm convinced about the semitic influence on Proto-Germanic, although it reminded me of one of the Sherlock Holmes stories (I can't remember which one) where he was trying to figure out whether Cornish had Chaldean roots.
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