Weeds in the Garden of Words: Further Observations on the Tangled History of the English Language
Kate Burridge follows the international success of Blooming English with another entertaining excursion into the ever-changing nature of the complex and captivating English language. If language is a glorious garden, filled with exotic hybrids as well as traditional heritage specimens, then weeds will also thrive on its fertile grounds. Linguistic weeds may be defined as pronunciations or constructions that are no longer used. For example, Burridge points out how "aint" or double negatives...
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Kate Burridge provides an entertaining look at 'unacceptable' words, phrases and pronunciations in English.
Introduction to the weedy traits of the English language1Our lexical weeds : the world of jargon, slang and euphemism14More lexical weeds : word origins and meaning shifts49Our grammatical weeds84Weeds in our sounds and spelling120The truly nasty weeds of the English language?165W(h)ither our weeds?182
