MOTHER TONGUE - Penguin

Only Bill Bryson coult make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English.From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue;its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity:its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling and pronunciation; Bryson covers all this as well as the many curious eccentricieties that make it as maddening to lears as it is flexible to use.