NINE NASTY WORDS: ENGLISH in the GUTTER: THEN, NOW, and FOREVER (audiobook) by John McWhorter

 



Published in May of 2021 by Penguin Audio.
Read by the author, John McWhorter.
Duration: 6 hours, 52 minutes.
Unabridged.

John McWhorter is a linguist who teaches at Columbia University. He does the nitty gritty linguistic work that professional linguists love to read about, but he also is pretty good at explaining linguistics to the non-professionals as well.

The author, John McWhorter
In this book McWhorter explores the origins of nine taboo words in English. Naturally, this brings to mind the familiar cast of "four letter words", but he also looks into other words that are similarly potent, such as the infamous "n word".

I found the book to be entertaining and an accessible look at how language changes over time - and sometimes it changes very quickly. McWhorter cites written sources, music, plays, musicals, TV shows and movies as artifacts to show when the words were used, how they were used and if there was a change in their use. For example, the word a**hole arrived fairly late and then underwent a dramatic change from being a wimp to being an obnoxious person. 

I found this to be a very entertaining audiobook. I rate it 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: NINE NASTY WORDS: ENGLISH in the GUTTER: THEN, NOW, and FOREVER by John McWhorter.

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