John McWhorter is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and is the author of more than fifteen books, including The Language Hoax, The Power of Babel, and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue. He writes for TIME, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic, and his articles have also appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and The Daily Beas
"John McWhorter's Words on the Move has a deeper point than most
language books: it's focused on the ordinary words which do most of
the grunt work of communicating, but which we rarely give much
thought to. It's full of little puzzles and surprises that stop us
in our tracks and make us aware of the gentle breezes that are
always blowing our words hither and yon. McWhorter is awfully good
at listening to words and at explaining what he hears there, and
his book is so brimming with insights that even as a linguist, I
found myself stopping every couple of pages to say to myself,
'Huh--I never thought of that.' So will you."
--Geoffrey Nunberg, linguist on NPR's "Fresh Air" and author of
Going Nucular and Ascent of the A-Word "If you want to hate on new
developments in English, you should at least understand why. With a
combination of linguistic erudition and ready wit, John McWhorter
takes us on a tour of a thousand years of the history of English,
showing how language change is natural, unavoidable, and
fascinating. You'll come away with a better realization of why you
feel the way you do--and why you shouldn't."
--Jesse Sheidlower, author of The F-Word, former editor at large of
the Oxford English Dictionary, and past president of the American
Dialect Society "Witty and wise, John McWhorter's Words on the Move
is an adventure and a romp, full of surprises and delights. If you
love language, you will love this book. You'll never think of
language in the same way again."
--Deborah Tannen, university professor and professor of
linguistics, Georgetown University, and author of You Just Don't
Understand "An unintimidating welcome to readers new to the subject
that pleasantly relaxes the discourse of grammar
propriety."--Publishers Weekly "Fascinating.... McWhorter proves to
be a well-informed and cheerful guide to linguistics....
enthusiastically mak[ing] the case that language is fluid."--Kirkus
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