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Inventing English : A Portable History of the Language, Revised and Expanded Edition by Lerer, Seth is a work of fiction available to read on EtoBox.

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Why is there such a striking difference between English spelling & English pronunciation? How did our seemingly relatively simple grammar rules develop? What are the origins of regional dialect, literary language, & everyday speech, & what do they have to do with you? Seth Lerer's Inventing English is a masterful, engaging history of the English language from the age of Beowulf to the rap of Eminem. Many have written about the evolution of our grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, but only Lerer situates these developments in the larger history of English, America, & literature. Lerer begins in the seventh century with the poet Caedmon learning to sing what would become the earliest poem in English. He then looks at the medieval scribes and poets who gave shape to Middle English. He finds the traces of the Great Vowel Shift in the spelling choices of letter writers of the 15th century & explores the achievements of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of 1755 and The Oxford English Dictionary of the late nineteenth & early twentieth centuries. He describes the differences between English & American usage &, through the example of Mark Twain, the link between regional dialect & race, cla

Who reads Inventing English : A Portable History of the Language, Revised and Expanded Edition?

Author

Lerer, Seth

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published

2015

Language

EN

ISBN

9780231510769

Category

work of fiction

Subjects

Linguistics, Historical Fiction, Literary Criticism

Rating

4.3 / 5 (103 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14