MYTHS, LIES, and HALF-TRUTHS of LANGUAGE USAGE (audiobook) by John McWhorter

Originally Published by
The Great Courses in 2012.
This version published by
The Great Courses in 2013.
Read by the author, John McWhorter.
Unabridged.

Linguist John McWhorter takes a look at the history of the English language in this 24 lecture presentation. He includes the origins of some of our more unique features and also the origins of some of our "rules" that aren't really rules at all.

The author,
John McWhorter

McWhorter takes a long view, going all of the way back to English's roots in proto-Indo-European. Proto-Indo-European language from the Caucus mountains region that spread all over the place and eventually became lots and lots of modern languages, including English.

For me, the most interesting theory was based on English's relative lack of verb endings. If you have ever studied Spanish, like me, than you remember the endless verb charts and verb endings. The same goes with French and German. Why doesn't English have all of those endings? We used to, but they disappeared - perhaps thanks to the Vikings!

The first half of this audiobook was an absolute joy to listen to. It was interesting and presented well - 5 stars. However, somewhere in the middle, the lectures became less interesting and somewhat repetitive - sometimes it became . It would have been better to have tightened up a few of the presentations and cut down the 24 lectures to 18 or 20 very lean and effective lectures.

So, the final result is 4 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here:  MYTHS, LIES, and HALF-TRUTHS of LANGUAGE USAGE (audiobook) by John McWhorter.