Notepad
The notepad is empty.
The basket is empty.
Free shipping possible
Free shipping possible
Please wait - the print view of the page is being prepared.
The print dialogue opens as soon as the page has been completely loaded.
If the print preview is incomplete, please close it and select "Print again".
Mother Tongue
ISBN/GTIN

Mother Tongue

The Story of the English Language - B-format
PaperbackPaperback
EUR12,50
Store inventory
1xDussmann das KulturKaufhaus

Product description

'More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to...'

Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English. From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue; its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity; its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling and pronunciation, Bryson covers all this as well as the many curious eccentricities that make it as maddening to learn as it is flexible to use.

Bill Bryson's classic Mother Tongue is a highly readable and hilarious tale of how English came to be the world's language.
Read more

Details

ISBN/GTIN978-0-14-104008-0
Product TypePaperback
BindingPaperback
Publishing date01/10/2009
Editionreiss.
Pages288 pages
LanguageEnglish
Weight213 g
Article no.12705373
CatalogsZeitfracht
Data source no.090790346
Product groupBU560
More details

Ratings

Recommendations for similar products

The titular essay in this collection is one of the funniest bits of writing you will ever read (full stop). Foster Wallace may be beginning to descend into the realms of the unfashionable but that should not stop you reading his account of a grim holiday on a cruise ship. From the name he gives the ship to his feelings of pure hatred for a small boy who sits at the table with him each evening and his endless stream of snide footnotes, I don't think there are many funnier examples of the essay form in English. The rest of the collection (like all collections) has some major highs and a few lows but the cruise ship is worth the cover price alone.

Author

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and grew up there, but has spent most of his adult life in Britain. He has worked for a number of newspapers, including The Times and the Independent. His books on the English language include Mother Tongue and Troublesome Words, both published by Penguin.

Bill Bryson is the author of several bestsellers including The Lost Continent, Neither Here Nor There, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, Notes from a Big Country, Down Under, A Short History of Nearly Everything, One Summer: America 1927 and his memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. His most recent bestseller is The Road to Little Dribbling.

Subjects