Index

abbreviations 138, 203–4

Aboriginal languages 173

abortion 255

Académie Française 139

accents, regional 250

acronyms 203–4, 229

Adams, John 134–5, 152, 230, 275

Addison, Joseph 150

adjectives 237, 272

adverbs 272

advertising 229

African Americans 162

and slang 162–3, 211–12

Afrikaans 170

Aidan 27

AIDS 204

air traffic control 10–11

Alfred the Great, King 29, 35–7, 275

Algonquian 125–6, 135

alphabet

and Christianity 25

runic 25, 42

Shaw and new 243–4

ambition 145

America

African-derived terms 129

Algonquian 125–6, 135

application of Latin to currency 17

British place names in 178–9

Cajun dialect 127–8

dominance of in world culture 212

Dutch-speaking settlers 127

effect on global English 212–14

English-speaking settlers 122–9

establishment of English as dominant language 132–5

food and cooking styles brought in by immigrants 165

French-speaking settlers 127–8

German-speaking settlers 128

independence 134, 151–67

Inuit-derived expressions 131–2

Jewish immigration 163

linguistic dominance of 222

‘Lost Colony’ 122

Native American metaphors 130–1

New York 127

Pennsylvania Dutch 128

and Pilgrims 122, 123–5

political oratory tradition 259–60

and pronunciation 252

Spanish speakers and terms 18–19

speaking one language 132–5

American Dictionary of the English Language (Webster) 155–6

‘American Dream’ 134

American English 124–5, 153–6

criticism of by British 152, 213–14

and dialect 159–63

differences between British English and 215–18

linguistic donations to 127–9

and Webster’s dictionaries 153–6

Wild West words 165–6

Americanization of English 152, 213

Amish 128, 133

Andrews, Lancelot 111

Angles 22, 23, 30, 46, 274

Anglican Church 30

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 33, 36–7

Anglo-Saxons 14, 19, 22–32, 38, 39, 52–3, 231, 274

attitudes 29–32

and Christianity 26–9, 33

and Norman Conquest 48

prevailing of Germanic language over Celtic 24

runic alphabet 25, 42

animal names 50, 125–6, 166

anorak 131–2

anti-semitism 268

Antonine Wall 15

Antonius Pius, Emperor 15

apartheid 170

apostrophe 146, 247, 248

Arabic 10

Armenian 5

Arnold, Thomas 181

Arthur, King 23, 24, 77, 107

Ascension Island 168

Asiatick Society 3–8, 171

Astronomer Royal 57

astronomy 113–14

Athelney 35

Athelstan, King 39

atmosphere 116

Aubrey, John 92, 115, 266

Augustine, St 16, 26–7, 275

Austen, Jane 146

Emma 51

Australia 169, 173–5

contribution of Aboriginal languages to English 173

treatment of English language 173–4

Australian English 174–6

automobile 191

axe/hatchet 55

Babel, Tower of 1–2

back-formation 200, 238

Bacon, Francis 91, 101, 114, 115

Advancement of Learning 114

Novum Organum 114

banana 129

barbecue 129

Barnard, Frederick 141–2

barometer 116

Bayeux Tapestry 46

BBC 249, 250

Becket, Thomas 71

Beckett, Samuel 178

Beckham, David and Victoria 210

Bede, Venerable 22, 28–9, 276

Ecclesiastical History of the English People 22, 29, 36, 42

Beijing Olympics (2008) 222–3

belittle 152

Bell, Alexander Graham 192, 193

Bengali 10

Beowulf 25, 32, 41–3, 49

Berlin Wall 256

berserk(er) 39

Bible 28, 80–1, 252

Authorised Version of 139

Bishop’s Bible 109, 111

Geneva version 109, 110

King James Bible 90, 100, 110–13, 154

New English Bible 112

translations of 80, 109

Wyclif’s translation of 80–1, 109

bimbo 201–2

Biró, Lászlo 205

Bishop’s Bible 109, 111

Black Death 67–8

black slang 162–3, 211–12

black writers 161–2

Blair, Tony 259, 263, 264

Blairite 206

blog 232

blogosphere 232

blonk 79

blurb 225

Boccaccio, Giovanni 69

Decameron 72

bogus 129

Book of Common Prayer 89–90, 139

Book of Genesis 1

books, publishing of 147–8

bookworm 145

boomerang 173

Boswell, James

Life 140

brackets 247

Braille, Louis 205

Brer Rabbit 161

Breton 13, 19

British empire 168–9

British English

differences between American English and 215–18

Bruce, Lenny 197

Bryson, Bill

Mother Tongue 213–14, 267

Buchan, John 268

bungalow 180–1, 201

Burgess, Anthony 137

Burgess, Gelett 225

Burma 180

Burton, Richard 20

Bush, George W. 263

Bushite 206

business jargon 209–10

by names 37

Byrd, William 179

cabal 120–1

caballus 51

Caesar, Julius 13, 21, 47

Cajun dialect 127–8

Calvinists 109

Cambodia 180

Cambridge (Massachusetts) 178–9

Canada 11, 127, 170

Canadian English 170

candidate 145

cannibals 128

Canute (Cnut) 33

car 19, 191

Carib peoples 128

Carroll, Lewis 225

Through the Looking Glass 29–30

castle-building 47

castra, place names from 16

catchphrases 211–12, 225–6

Catholicism/Catholics 88, 109

caucus 126, 130

Caxton, William 62–4, 81–2, 276

Celtic 13, 24, 46, 274

legacy of 17–19

Celtic Revival 14

Celts 13–14, 15, 53, 230

Chamberlain’s Men (later King’s Men) 91–2

Chandler, Raymond 208

Charles I, King 107

Charles II, King 107, 114, 119, 120

Charles, Prince 250

Chaucer, Geoffrey 7, 41, 44, 61, 68–73, 137, 276

The Canterbury Tales 68, 69, 71–3, 82, 83–4, 264–5

The Merchant’s Tale 73–6

The Pardoner’s Tale 68

The Reeve’s Tale 76–7

Troilus and Criseyde 64–5, 69

Chaucer’s English 61–2, 73–7

chav 196–7, 226

chemical dictionary 195

Chenevix Trench, Richard 181, 182

Chesterfield, Lord 141

chiasmus 262

China/Chinese 221–2

numbers learning English 220

Chinese language 9

Chinglish 221–3

chivalry 49, 50–2, 77

chortle 225

Christianity 26–9, 33

alphabet 25

conversion of England to 26–7, 33

impact of on language 27–8

vocabulary 27–8

see also Bible

Christmas 27

Church of England 30

Churchill, Winston 105, 197, 205, 259

Churchillian 205

chutzpah 164

circulating libraries 187

circulation of the blood 114, 117

Claudius, Emperor 13, 14, 52, 274, 276

Clemens, Samuel see Twain, Mark

climate change 254–5

club 40

Cnut (Canute), King 33

Cockney 190, 210

coffee-house 150

coinage, and Latin 16–17

Coleridge, Herbert 181–2, 184

Collins, Philip 259

Collins, Wilkie 187

colloquial English 206

colons 247

-combe names 18

commas 248, 274

Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (Webster) 154

compound terms 200

computer jargon 209

Conan Doyle, Arthur 187

Condell, Henry 92

conjunctions 26, 244, 272

Cook, Captain James 149, 173

cookery, French link 48

Cornish 13, 19

corpuscle 116

correct English 136, 233, 239

Cotton, Sir Robert 43

Cottonian Library (Ashburnham House) 43

‘counterfeit crank’ 102–3

court 62

courtesy 51–2

courtly manners 49

‘covert prestige’ 251

cowboy 165–6

Cranmer, Thomas 89

creationists 255

credit crunch 196, 197

creole 176, 221

criminal-related slang/jargon 101–3, 189–90, 208–9

Crystal, David 228

curfew 59–60

curry 172

cwm 18

-dale names 38

damp squib 226

Danelaw 33, 36, 37, 38, 64

Danes 26, 34, 35–6 see also Vikings

Danish place names 37–8

Darwin, Charles

On the Origin of Species 188

Davenant, Sir William 92

days of the week 27

Deck, Jeff 233–4

Declaration of Independence (1776) 151

Defoe, Daniel 146

Robinson Crusoe 146, 148

demand 55

democratic 256

Derby, Earl of 91

descriptivists 235–6, 238

detective stories 189

devil 27

dialect 64–7

and American English 159–63

East Midlands 61, 64, 70, 73–7

and Shakespeare 94–5

Dickens, Charles 187, 189

Martin Chuzzlewit 213

Dickensian 205–6

dictionaries

American Dictionary of the English Language (Webster) 155–6

chemical 195

Compendious Dictionary of English Language (Webster) 154

followers of fashion 198–9

Hepster’s Dictionary 211

inclusion of obscene words 267

Let Stalk Strine 174

and new words 196, 197–9

Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang 218–19

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) 181–7, 267

Random House Dictionary 267

Dictionary of the English Language (Johnson) 137, 140–6, 155, 182, 186

compilation of 140–1

definitions 145–6

preface to 143–5

die 40

dinosaur 194

diphthongs 217

diplomacy, French link 48

disinterested 199, 238

Domesday Book 28, 47–8

double negatives 147

doubt 242

doughnutting 264

drama 147

Dream of the Rood 25

driving words 191

Druid/Druidism 21

Dryden, John 150

Dudley, Robert (Earl of Leicester) 105

dull 146

‘dumbing down’ 188–9

Dunbar, Paul 161–2

Durham cathedral/castle 47

Dutch 23

e-mails 204, 228–9

East Anglia 23, 47, 62, 66, 126

East India Company 170

East Midlands dialect 61, 64, 70, 73–7

Easter 27

education 188

Edward the Confessor 45

Edward I, King 54

Edward, King (son of King Alfred) 38

‘ee’ sound 240

Egypt 169

Eleanor of Aquitaine 49

Eliot, T.S. 268

Elizabeth I, Queen 85, 87, 88, 107, 122, 276

Tilbury speech 104–5

Elizabethan period 85–106

elocution lessons 147

emoticons 228–9

England

wealth distribution in medieval 66–7

English language

Americanization of 152, 213

battle with Old Norse 38–9

colloquial 206

differences between American and British 215–18

evolvement of 230–1

future of 220–32

global success and spread of 8, 10, 149, 168–80, 195, 230

policing of 136

ranking and number of speakers 9–10

resistance to encroachment of 176–7

roots of 25–6

rules 237–8

standardization of 62, 65–6, 83, 147

English Civil Wars (1642-51) 89, 107, 136

Enlightenment 275

eponyms 204–6, 225

Eskimo 131

Esperanto 1, 7–8

Ethandune, Battle of (878) 36

Ethelbert, King 26–7

euphemisms 254–6

warfare 255–6

evolution 188

excise 146

exclamation marks 247

expede/impede 86

experiment 114–15

f-word 267

faggot 215–16

fart 266

fast food 224

Faulkner, William 97

fell swoop 226

Fielding, Henry

Tom Jones 148

Flamsteed, John 114

food 165

foreign words/phrases 201–3

Fosse Way 14

France 9

air-traffic control 11

constitution 157

Franglais 223–4

Franklin, Benjamin 151, 152

French language 66, 202–3

and gender 56

link with fashionability 48

noun followed by adjective practice 56–7

ranking 9, 19

see also Norman French

Freud, Sigmund 206

Frost, Robert 97

Fry, Christopher 260

Furnivall, Frederick 184

Gaelic 13, 18, 176–8

Gainsborough, Thomas 150

Galileo 113, 115

galumph 225

gas 116

Gaskell, Elizabeth 187

gat 208–9

-gate words 200, 218–19

gender of nouns 56

genocide 256

gentilesse 83–4

George III, King 141–2

German language 10, 23, 202, 203

Germanic 23–4

Gettysburg Address (1863) 156–9, 259–60

ghoti 243

global warming 254–5

Globe Theatre 94, 102

Glorious Revolution 107

Goldsmith, Oliver 178

Gone with the Wind 266–7

Gothic 23

gotten 124–5

grammar 147, 244–6, 247

Greeks, ancient 2

Greenwich Observatory 114

Gregory, Pope 30

Grendel 42

Griffiths-Jones, Mervyn 270

Guardian 245

Gunpowder Plot (1605) 109

Gutenberg, Johannes 81

Guthrum 36

’H’, pronunciation of 251–2

Hadrian’s Wall 15, 24–5

Harald Hardrada, King of Norway 46

Hardy, Thomas 31

Harlem Renaissance 162

Harley, Robert see Oxford, Earl of

Harman, Thomas 102, 103

Harold, King (Harold Godwinson) 45–6

Harris, Joel Chandler 161

Harry, Prince 250

harrying the north 46

Harvey, William 113–14, 116–17

Hastings, Battle of (1066) 46

haute couture 48

Heming, John 92

Henry II, King 71

Henry IV, King 59

Henry VIII, King 16, 87–8

Hepster’s Dictionary 211

Hereward the Wake 47

Herson, Benjamin 233–4

Hindu/Urdu 9

hip 211

Hispanic communities (in US) 224

Hitchcock, Alfred 206

Hoagie-gate scandal 219

homophones 242

honorificabilitudinitatibus 100–1

honour 49, 51

hooker 216

Hope, Anthony

The Prisoner of Zenda 205

Hopkins, Anthony 20

house-style 82

hubris 2

Hundred Years War 54

Huxley, Aldous 97

Huygens, Christiaan 116

hyphens

American and British English usage 217

Icelandic 23

impede/expede 86

India 169, 170–2

expressions from Indian languages adopted into English 172

impact of on England and English language 172

place names 180

and Sanskrit 3–4, 171

Indian file 130

Indian summer 130

Indo-European languages 1, 4–5, 6, 7, 13, 171, 230

infinitives, split 246

ink-horn terms 85

intelligent design (ID) 255

International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) 11

internet 228

Inuit 131–2

Iona 34

Ireland 176–7

and Gaelic 13, 18, 176–8

mapping of 177

place names 177

writers 178

Italian terms 165, 203

-ite words 206

ITV 250

James I (James VI of Scotland), King 68, 107–9, 129, 276

A Counterblast to Tobacco 108

and translation of Bible 110–13

jargon 206–8

computer 209

derived from trades and professions 209–10

sources of 208–12

sports 209

thieves’ 209

see also slang

Jarrow 34

Jefferson, Thomas 152–3, 276

Jews

as American immigrants 163

and anti-semitism 268

and Yiddish 163–4

jibe 85–6

John of Gaunt 69

John, King 53

John of Trevisa 65

Johnson, Dr Samuel 97, 139, 140–6, 277

Dictionary of the English Language 137, 140–6, 155, 182, 186

Rasselas 149

Jones, Sir William Jones (judge) 3–4, 230, 277

Jones, William (philologist) 171

Jonson, Ben 99–100

The Alchemist 114

Joyce, James 178, 226

Finnegans Wake 225

Ulysses 226

Judgement Day 28

juggernaut 172

Jutes 22, 23

kabbala 120

kangaroo 173

Kennedy, John F. 261–2

Kepler, Johannes 113

Kes (film) 63

Keynes, John Maynard 205

Keynesianism 205

King James Bible 90, 100, 110–13, 154

King’s Men 91, 92

knife 40

knight 51

Knighton, Henry 80–1

Lady Chatterley’s Lover trial (1960) 269–70

laissez-faire group 235

Langland, William

Piers Plowman 72, 77, 79

languages

levels of 187–9

most influential 10

most popular 8–10

primary/secondary speakers 8, 9

spread of 6–7

see also individual languages

larrikin 174–5

Latin 5, 13, 15–16, 48, 66, 203

classical 66

and coinage 16–17

place names 16

Lauder, Afferbeck (Alastair Morrison) 174

law-court proceedings 58

Lawrence, D.H. 277

Lady Chatterley’s Lover 269–70

Lee Kuan Yew, President 222

Leicester, Earl of (Robert Dudley) 105

Let Stalk Strine 174

libraries, circulating 187

Licensing Act 148

Lincoln, Abraham 277

Gettysburg Address (1863) 56–9, 259–60

Lindisfarne Gospels 80

-lite words 199–200

literacy, growth in 136, 147, 188

Livingstone (Zimbabwe) 179

Lloyd’s 150

locomotive 191

log 232

Lollards 81

London 66–7, 68–9

and Black Death 68

coffee-houses 150

East End 210

lure of 67

newspapers in 148

Victorian 189–90

Lord’s Prayer 8, 28

Macaulay, Thomas

History of England 171

McBain, Ed 227

McCoy, Joseph 166

MacLean, Alistair 97

magazines 148

Malaysia 221

Malory, Sir Thomas

Morte d’Arthur 82

Malta 169

Manchester 148

Mandarin 1, 10

Manx 13

Marconi, Guglielmo 192

Marlowe, Christopher 91

Mary I, Queen 88, 89

Mary, Queen of Scots 88, 107–8

maven 164

maverick 166

Maverick, Samuel 166

Mayflower 122, 123

Mayhew, Henry 189

mead-hall 32, 42

melancholy 146

Mennonite sect 128

metaphors, Native American 130–1

microscope 116

Middle Ages 40, 51, 66, 72, 77, 190, 264, 274

Middle English 5

Milton, John 115–16, 117–19, 277

Paradise Lost 115, 117–18

phrases created by 118–19

minuscule 199

mob 206–7

mobile phone 228

monasteries, dissolution of 43, 88

mondegreens 227

money

slang terms for 207

see also coinage

Morning Chronicle 189

Morrison, Alastair (Afferbeck Lauder) 174

Morse, Samuel 192

Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims in Plymouth 123–4

Mudie’s 187

mugwump 130–1

‘Mummerset’ 95

Murray, James 184–6, 277

Murray River 179

Murrow, Edward R. 259

Native Americans 123, 125

metaphors 130–1

natural selection 188

negatives, double 147

neologisms see new words

net 155

New English Bible 112

New Labour 264

new words (neologisms) 225–6

and dictionary inclusion 196, 197–9

foreign words and borrowings 201–3

origins 199–201

prescriptive vs descriptive 238–9

profusion of 195

New York 127

newspapers 148

complaints on content of 244–6

house-style 82

Newton, Isaac 114

Principia Mathematica 114

nick 207

nineteenth century 181–94

Nixon, President Richard 218

Noah 1

Norman Conquest 16, 24, 37, 45–60, 223, 274

bi- and trilingualism in England 48

intermarriage 53

survival of English language and reasons 46, 52–4

William’s rule 46–8

Norman French 48, 49–59, 83, 223, 231

differences between Old English and 49–50

impact of on English 55–8

linguistic nuances 54–5

replacement of by English in England 58–9

words associated with honour and chivalry 49, 51

Normandy 53

Norsemen 34, 274, see also Vikings

Northern dialect 64

Northumbria 53

Norwich 66

nouns 56, 272–3

capitalization of 124

gender of 56

used as verbs 200–1, 238–9

novels 147, 148–9, 187

Obama, Barack 261, 262–3

obscene words 264–8, 269

Oedipus Complex 206

Offa’s Dyke 25

OK 11–12, 129

Old English 24, 27, 37, 45, 46

common words from 25–6

differences between Norman French and 49–50

genders 56

revival of words in Elizabethan age 86

used by Shakespeare 96

Old Norse 5, 34, 37–8, 64

battle with English 38–9

influence on English language 39–41

orthography see spelling

Orwell, George

‘Politics and the English Language’ 256

Owen, Richard 194

Oxbridge 205

Oxford 179

Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang 218–19

Oxford, Earl of (Robert Harley) 137, 139, 141

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) 181–7, 267

Oxford University Press 184

pandemonium 118

Panglish 223

Papua New Guinea 176

parallel 155

Parliament, televising of 263–4

Partridge, Eric

Usage and Abusage 239

patio 201

patron 146

pendulum 116

‘penny dreadful’ 187

pension 146

Pennsylvania Dutch 128

Pepys, Samuel 119–20

Diary 119–20

periodicals 148

pest 68

Petrarch 69

Philological Society 181

phonetic system of spelling 240, 241–2

phrasal verbs 143

phrenology 188

Picts 15, 23

Pidgin English 175–6, 221, 230

Pilgrims 122, 123–5

place names

America 128–9

Celtic 17–18

deriving from Britain 178–9

foreign 179–80

India 180

Ireland 177

Latin 16

Viking 37–8

Plaid Cymru 20

playhouses 102

pleasure 146

Plymouth (Massachusetts) 122

Poe, Edgar Alan 189

poetry 147

political correctness 257–8

political speeches 259–63

politicians 106

and pronunciation 250

politics, phraseology 263–4

poms 175

Pope, Alexander 150

pork barrel 263

portmanteau terms 200, 223, 225

Portuguese 10

posse 166

potlatch 130

poverty, urban 189

pow-wow 135

‘prawn cocktail offensive’ 264

praying mantis 226

prefixes 199, 202

prepositions 273

prescriptivists 233–4, 238

printing 81–3

arrival of in Britain 81, 82–3

and Caxton 81–2

invention of 62

and standardization of English 83

prisons, Elizabethan 103

professional jargon 209–10

pronouns 41, 273

pronunciation 147, 249–52

correct 147

differences between British and American English 215–16

as indicator of class and education 252

Received 249–50, 251, 252

regional accents 250

and sound of letter ‘h’ 251–2

Stone Age 5

Protestant 88

proto-language 3, 6

pseudo-science 114, 188

public statements 253–4

punctuation 146, 246–9

problems caused by poor 248

Puritans 88–9, 109, 110

puzzles 229

quantum leap 198

quark 225

Queen’s English 249

question mark 247

queynte 265

quotation marks 247

racially charged language 268–9

railways 190–1

Raleigh, Sir Walter 122

Random House Dictionary 267

ransack 39–40

Read, Kingsley 244

Reading University 5

Reagan, Ronald 205

Reaganomics 205

‘real McCoy, the’ 166

rebuses 229

Received Pronunciation (RP) 249–50, 251, 252

refraction 116

regional accents 250

religion

and science 113

vocabulary of 28

Renaissance 16, 87, 274

rhetorical devices 262

rhyming slang 210

Riccioli, Giovanni 114

Richard II, King 59

Richmond 179

road signs, bilingual 20

Romans 13, 14–17, 19, 23, 167, 230, 274

conquest of Britain 13, 14–16

ending of occupation of Britain 17

Rosten, Leo

The New Joys of Yiddish 163

Roth, Philip

The Human Stain 268

Royal Navy submarine jargon 209

Royal Society 119

rubber-chicken circuit 264

rules of language 237–8

runic alphabet 25, 42

Ruritanian 205

Russian language 9, 10

sabo 222

sack 40

sad face 228

St Paul’s Cathedral 67

Sanskrit 3–4, 171

Savan, Leslie

Slam Dunks and No-Brains 134

Savile, Sir Henry 111

savvey 176

Saxon (heavy-metal band) 31

Saxons 22, 23, 40, 274 see also Anglo-Saxons

Schadenfreude 201

schlepp 164

schmaltz 164

schmooze 164

schools, use of English in 58–9

science, rise of 113–17

scientific terms 116–17, 198

Scotland 15

Scott, Sir Walter

Ivanhoe 50

Scottish explorers/settlers 179

Second World War 229

seek/search 55

semicolons 146, 246, 247

senate 167

Shakespeare, William 41, 90–101, 106, 125, 278

As You Like It 95

authorship disputes 91, 101

class and language 92–3

dialect in plays 94–5

double entendres 97

First Folio 92

Hamlet 93, 98, 106

Henry V 94

hidden meanings 100–3

impact on English 97

King Lear 95, 106

language of 95–7

legends surrounding 100–1

life 91–2

Love Labour’s Lost 101

Macbeth 95–6, 97–8

The Merchant of Venice 97

Much Ado about Nothing 93

phrase-making 96–7

puns and word-play 97–8

The Tempest 98–9, 128, 266

Twelfth Night 147

Venus and Adonis 91

word manipulation 98–100

words invented 96

Shaw, George Bernard 178, 240–1, 278

and new alphabet 243–4

Pygmalion 266

sheila 174

Shelley, Mary

Frankenstein 187

shtick 164

shtum 164

Singlish 221, 222, 230

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 43, 77–9

sky 43–4

slang 206–8

black 162–3, 211–12

criminal-related 101–3, 189–90, 208–9

rhyming 210

sources of 208–12

see also jargon

slaughter 40

slave trade 175

slogan 18

smiley face 228

Smith, Captain John 125–6

Smith, Miles (Bishop of Gloucester) 111

-son, surname suffix 38

South Africa 170

Spain 9

Spanglish 224–5

Spanish Armada 104

Spanish language, ranking 9, 10

Spanish terms 128–9, 165, 166, 203

Spectator 148

spectrum 116

speech, parts of 271–3

speech-making 259–63

speech marks 248

spelling 136–7, 138–9, 239–43, 247

attempts to simplify 240–2

differences between American and British English 215, 216–17

inconsistencies 240

phonetic system 240, 241–2

Shaw and reform of 243–4

teaching of 240

sports jargon 209

Sri Lanka (Ceylon) 180

Stanford Bridge, Battle of 46

Statue of Liberty 262

Stoker, Bram

Dracula 187

Stone Age, pronunciation in 5

Stowe, Harriet Beecher

Uncle Tom’s Cabin 161

suffixes 199–200, 202, 216–17

‘super’- prefix 199

surnames 38, 69

swag 174

Swahili 176

swear-words 207–8, 267–8

Swedish 23

Swift, Jonathan 137–9, 141, 146, 178, 241–2, 278

Gulliver’s Travels 137, 148

letter on condition of English language 137–9

Swynford, Katherine 69

synonyms 87

taboo words 264–70

Tahiti 149

Tatler 148

tattoos 149

technical expressions 116–17

telecommunications 192

telegrams 229

telegraph 192

telegraphese 192

telephone conversations 193, 228–9

telephones 192–3

telescope 116

television 191

texting 204, 228–9, 241

Thatcher, Margaret 260–1

Thatcherite 206

thieves’ cant 102–3

thieves’ jargon 209

think 241

Thomas, Dylan 20

Thorkelin, Grímur 43

-thorp(e) names 38

three 241

‘three-decker’ 187

-thwaite names 38

Tilbury, Elizabeth I’s speech at 104–5

‘to the manner born’ 226

tobacco 129

James I’s Counterblast to Tobacco 108

Tolkien, J.R.R.

The Lord of the Rings 25, 32

tor 18

tortilla 165

Tory 146

totem 131

Tower of Babel 1–2

Tower of London 47

tree analogy, and spread of language 6–7

Truman, President 212–13

tsunami 201

Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens) 156, 159–61, 278

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 159–61, 268

Tom Sawyer 159

Tynan, Ken 267

Tyndale, William 111

Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) 233–4

United States see America

van Helmont, J.B. 116

veranda 201

verbs 57–8, 273

creation of 238

endings 57, 58, 59

nouns used as 200–1, 238

phrasal 143

‘weak’ and ’strong’ 57–8

Victoria, Queen 172

Victorian era 275

crime 189–90

railways 190–1

underclass 189

Vikings 26, 33–44, 232, 274

attack on France 54

influence of Old Norse language on English 39–41

origin of term 34

place names 37–8

raids on England and conquest of 34–5

resistance to by Alfred the Great 35–7

surnames 38

Virgil 16

Virginia 122–3

Vonnegut, Kurt 247

walkabout 173

Walpole, Horace

The Castle of Otranto 148–9

wannabes 211

warfare euphemisms 255–6

Warhol, Andy 204

warrior’s code 49

Washington, George 152

WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) 31–2

Watergate 218–19

Waterloo, Battle of (1815) 192

Watling Street 36

Waugh, Evelyn 229

web 232

Weber, George 9, 10

Webster, Noah 153–6, 181, 182, 184, 278

American Dictionary of the English Language 155–6

Compendious Dictionary of the English Language 154

Wedgwood, Hensleigh 182

Wedmore, Treaty of (878) 36

weekend 224

welkin 44

Wellington, Duke of (Arthur Wellesley) 179

Wells, H.G. 187

Welsh language 13, 19–21

Wessex 31, 35

Westbury, white horse 36

whassup? 211–12

Whig 146

whisky 18

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) 31–2

Whitgift, John (Archbishop of Canterbury) 110

Wi-Fi 192

Wikipedia 10

Wild West words 165–6

Wilde, Oscar 178

William I the Conqueror, King 24, 28, 37, 45–8, 52, 59, 278

William III, King 107

William, Prince 250

William Rufus 48

‘Winchester Geese’ 102

Winchester, Simon

The Meaning of Everything 183

wireless 192

Witherspoon, John 152

word games 100

word order 56, 64, 262

Wright, Sylvia 227

Wyclif, John 80–1, 109, 278

Wynkyn de Worde, Jan 82

yadda yadda yadda 197

Yellow Book (magazine) 188

Yiddish 163–4

Zamenhoff, Dr Ludovic 7