The Story of English in 100 Words

IT IS NOT CRYSTAL’S BEST WORK! I have purchased David Crystal’s books since I started to study English as a Foreign Language long time ago, and I got used to his style. After reading his The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of English Language, I expected something deeper.So, do not expect to learn the story of English in this book. On the other hand, we should ask ourselves: is that possible to tell the story of English in 100 words?Well, Crystal explain how he did it in the preface of his book : “ it is , of course, a personal list. If you would choose 100 hundred words to represent the English language, they would certainly be different.”Considering he has a great knowledge in Language Teaching and Learning and is a famous writer in this field, I guess he can write a good book in this issue, maybe better than any other writer. Besides, it`s good price.Therefore, it’s worth to buy the book.I did not read the story of English, but I learned lots of curious aspects of English language.

The "Story of English in 100 Words" is intended to merge two approaches to writing about the English language. One approach is to discuss themes and trends within major periods of development, as author David Crystal has done in other volumes. Another approach involves "wordbooks" or "phrase books" that examine the etymology of particular words or the origins of certain phrases. In an effort to reconcile these two techniques, Crystal has selected the 100 words he offers here because each tells part of the story of how the English language developed, all the way through to contemporary usage.Crystal largely succeeds in his attempt, though I think the result still ends up being more of an etymology book than a systemic history of English. Still, it's a fun and highlighy readable narrative, and as a bonus you'll actually learn the stories of far more than 100 words--while each of the 100 chapters uses a single word as its starting point, Crystal introduces many other words and phrases for illustration and comparison.There are plenty of illuminating moments. Chapter 4, for example, explores the history of the word "loaf", a word that started out as the Anglo-Saxon "hlaf" during the 9th Century. The head of a household was a "hlaf-weard," literally a bread warden; the woman of the house was a "hlaefdige," a bread-kneader (the word "dige" is related to the modern "dough"). Hlaf-weard changed in the 14th century, as people quit pronouncing the "f", leading eventually to "lahrd" and finally to "lord." (Although Crystal doesn't mention it in this book, the Anglo-Saxon "hlaefdige" gradually evolved into "lady".) It's interesting to learn that the words "lord" and "lady" derived from the old Anglo-Saxon word for a loaf of bread, which speaks volumes about the subsistence level of the Medieval English economy--such people were important because they controlled the food supply, not just because they owned bags of gold.Another, similar book, which I took up after finishing Crystal's work, is  The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language , which performs a similar service, albeit in a more pointedly witty way.

I bought this after reading a quite positive review in the San Francisco Chronicle's Books section, since I have an ongoing interest in the English language. (It's not my mother tongue, but I feel I've mastered it quite well after living in the US for 17 years.) Sadly, while it was often amusing, the work did not live up to my expectations.It's perhaps best described as 100 short "columns" about random aspects of etymology and word formation. Each column takes specific word as a starting point, but usually that word is just a conversation starter. Sadly, many of the conversations don't go very deep. The least interesting ones degenerate in long lists of words that "also" follow a specific pattern. The best ones taught me interesting things I didn't know before, but there just weren't enough of these. Some of the worst ones seemed to just be improvisations, discussing some of the author's opinions on non-language-related subjects or telling almost-funny jokes.The author is also quite keen on the new words brought to us by the age of the Internet. Sadly, he appears to be a rather casual Internet user and doesn't have much to add. Often when he tries to show off his knowledge of Internet jargon he misses the mark by emphasizing terms already obsolete or getting them slightly wrong. I suspect he's using some secondary sources.All in all, not a total waste, but hardly the best $11 I've ever spent.

This was a delight. I had got the audio version from the library out of curiosity, having studied Crystal's work on assessing language development in young children about thirty years ago. I just wanted a brief look at what it was about, thinking I would return the CDs to the library shortly. But as I started listening in the car I was utterly mesmerized. I realized this was a book I must have and wanted to keep (hence the order via Amazon). Fascinating stories about how the meanings and spellings of words have evolved, thought provoking, and often funny. For example: why lawyers stipulate "goods" as well as "chattels", Caxton's headache about which word to use for "egg", why people in the sixteenth century inserted the 'b' into "debt", where "OK" comes from, how many ways" yogurt" is spelt... Get it. It's fun.

Frankly, I found this surprisingly boring. Its the sort of thing a writer like Crystal churns out in order to have another title in print. Most of the 100 entries beyond the early 60's deal more with sociology and pop culture than with language; they're the stuff of Sunday newspaper columns, not books about the "story of English." The earlier parts are interesting but the "story" is better and more coherently told elsewhere.

I just LOVED reading this book.A few years ago I read Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson and I enjoyed it thoroughly. But I bet that this tiny little tome will have a longer-lasting effect on my appreciation of the English language.Not only is the author the consummate master of his topic, he's also head over heels in love with it. No exaggeration, you get the feeling he narrowed it down to 100 from his favorite 10,000 words. He weaves in the Celtic, the Anglo-Saxon, the Viking, the Latin and the Norman / French, but does not forget the American, the Indian or even the Pidgin and he goes looking for the medical and the Internet terms that have crept into the language too. As a Greek, and one who speaks five languages, I'm rather miffed he never refers to the Greek roots of several English words, but I regardless thought this was a masterpiece.What we have here is a celebration of the English Language, rather than a mere story, basically. Reading this book is a bit like having the curator of the British Museum take you through his favorite ten exhibits. You get the history, the context, the evolution, everything.I'm jealous of David Crystal. He gets paid to share his life's biggest passion.Six stars

As ever and expected from David Crystal, a highly entertaining and informative book for those with an interest in the history of English. Linguists might know most of the historical aspects already, but for the general reader this book contains a wealth of information written in a lively style. It's also nice to see a little of the personal side of the author in the choices rather than just the highty entertaining factual writing style that those who are familiar with his work know.

I bought this product as a recommended book to read for a particular university linguistics module and I’m delighted to say how great David Crystal’s style of writing is. It’s clear and simple, understandable. I never thought I would be so intrigued by a random 100 words of English and where they had originated from. This is such an information-packed book. I’d recommend this to any English Language/Linguistics students!

Reading anything from David Crystal, the acknowledged world leader in the study of the English language, is always a thrill and 'The Story of English in 100 Words' is no exception. He takes us on an exciting journey from the first known written work of the earliest form of English, scratched on the ankle bone of a Roe Deer in the early fifth century via Chaucer, Shakespeare, Johnson, and dozens of other writers (referring to dozens, if not hundreds of other words besides the 100 of the title) right up to present day forms of txtng and journalism; not shrinking from the history of taboo words not usually written in full, if at all, in newspapers.David Crystal shows us that language, and the English language in particular, is a living, ever-changing, adapting, absorbing creature, reflecting the historical, cultural and social situations in which it operates. The best evidence of this is his twice repeated use of what must be one of his favourite expressions, 'You ain't seen nothing yet!'This is the sort of book you can read either right through fairly quickly, simply delighting in the author's use of the language he obviously loves, and getting a panoramic view of the language on the way, or as a reference work, stopping off to take in the detail at places that interest you, perhaps with help from the comprehensive index.

I'm a fan of David Crystal's works because of my interest in etymology. This work, though, is as much about the future as the past, highlighting the fluid nature of language. Words are continually deprecated, added, changed, trimmed, merged (I'm sure there are proper linguistic terms for this but I'm no expert), and their meanings and usage continually evolve. This is not a new phenomenon as the examples show. A lot of focus is given to new media, for example Twitter, showing how they accelerate this process. Some neologisms even I was unaware of.I'd always viewed the history of language as distinct from the traditional "history" discipline. I'd regarded today's English as the pinnacle of linguistic evolution. Maybe watching Star Trek, based three centuries in the future but with the same lexicon and pronounciation, cemented my misconception. I now feel disconcerted because I realise that my English will also be history, and there's nothing I can do about it.