Story of English in 100 Words - Crystal, David

Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient word ('loaf') to advanced ('twittersphere') and spanning the indispensable words that shape our tongue ('and', 'what') to the more fanciful ('fopdoodle'), the author takes us along the winding byways of language via the rude, the obscure and the downright surprising.