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Please don’t recommend Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue. Bryson has no actual background in linguistics and there is a factual error or urban myth on nearly ever
by Mediterraneo10 5y ago
Please don’t recommend Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue. Bryson has no actual background in linguistics and there is a factual error or urban myth on nearly every page of that book. There are loads of pop-sci “history of English” books written by people who were actually competent in the subject.
- quickthrowman 5y agoThanks for the heads up, I looked into criticism of this book and I won’t recommend it in the future. If you happen to see this reply, would ‘Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English’ by McWhorter be a better choice for a pop-sci history of English? r/Linguistics seems to be fine with him.