Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare

by Jeremy Butterfield

Overview

How many words are there in the English language and where were they born? Why does spelling 'wobble' and why do meanings change? How do words behave towards each other - and how do we behave towards words? And what does this all mean for dictionary-making in the 21st century? This entertaining book has the up-to-date and authoritative answers to all the key questions about our language. Using evidence provided by the world's largest language databank, the Oxford English Corpus, Butterfield exposes the English language's peculiarities and penchants, its development and difficulties, revealing exactly how it operates. Interpolating his expert knowledge of dictionary-making, Butterfield explains how dictionaries decide which words to include, how they find definitions, and how a Corpus influences the process. Whether you are happy to give the language free rein (free reign?), or whether you are more straight-laced (strait-laced?) when it comes to change, you will be amazed at what is revealed when the English language goes buck naked. (Or should that be butt naked?)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191608179
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	10/30/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	19 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Jeremy Butterfield has commissioned, compiled, and edited many major English and foreign-language dictionaries, and is a regular contributor to radio and TV discussions about questions of language use. He is particularly interested in how we all help language to evolve, and edited the Oxford A-Z of English Usage (2007).

Table of Contents

A sea change: The Corpus1. Size matters: How many words? 2. Your Roman-Saxon-Danish-Norman-English: Where do words come from? 3. Beware of heard: Why spelling wobbles4. Which is to be master? Meaning in context5. Words of a feather: Word groupings6. Cats and dogs: Idiomatic phrases7. Grammar that can govern even kings: What do we mean by grammar? 8. Style wars: Usages people hateDictionaries then and nowNotesIndex