Reviews

`important new study ... This austere linguistic study contains few generalizations, but pithy remarks sketch out ideas important for comprehending city life ... the essential material is presented with great transparency and regard for sense. This is the first substantial strike in a major scholarly campaign: the follow-up will be worth watching.'
Derek Keene, Urban History
`These texts provide a new angle on the development of London English, accepted as the forerunner to Standard English.'
The Medieval World
`This is a highly technical but extremely attractive socio-linguistic study derived from early London Corporation records ... From the point of view of dialect studies this meticulous work breaks with recent tradition in its deduction that the overwhelming variety of orthographic and phonological forms point to nothing like regional linguistic purity. Such reference works always make nice new research sources for many disciplines ... few volumes more
engaging than this very felt, real book could lie by your bedside lamp this year.'
Ruth Kennedy, Ricardian X No. 138 Sept 1997
`Wright's survey provides the precise information any careful student of English linguistic history would require ... the entries in this survey often antedate citations in these dictionaries and everywhere flesh them out with illustrations that complicate and more fully specify their meaning and characteristic use.'
Speculum - A Journal of Medieval Studies
A detailed study of Middle English vocabulary belonging to a unique semantic field is always to be welcomed, particularly one as meticulously researched and well presented as Laura Wright's book. / ... SLE undoubtedly will be used for decades to come, with trust, working on the tortuous development of the London dialect of late Middle English./ Willard James Rusch, University of Southern Maine, American Journal of Germanic Linguistics & Literatures, Vol
10, no1, 1998
`important new study ... This austere linguistic study contains few generalizations, but pithy remarks sketch out ideas important for comprehending city life ... the essential material is presented with great transparency and regard for sense. This is the first substantial strike in a major scholarly campaign: the follow-up will be worth watching.'
Urban History