First published in 2003, Susie Dent's book is both a short history of the assimilation of new words in to the English language, and a snapshot of current usage.

The author covers the 20th century in her look at the new words accepted into English usage (so, for example, "telephone-box" came into the language in 1903, "blog" in 1999) and also some of the language forms, like acronyms, which have become the source of many new and current words and expressions like "3G" (or, now, 4G and 5G), and text speak ("CWOT", "STR8" and "YMMV").

There are interesting sections on politics, sport and global variants of English (Carribean, South African, etc) and the whole is held together well with short, information-rich chapters on many other aspects of language, from words in the news to rhyming slang in the 2000's. Al Pacino, anyone?

One or two proof-reading errors in the edition I read niggled me, but overall this is a worthwhile attempt to lassoo English usage at the beginning of the 21st century and, briefly, slow it down enough for the author to observe it and show it to us. ( )

While this is certainly an entertaining book for anyone who loves language, I can't recommend it as a reference: for many words and expressions with which I am familiar, Ms. Dent just doesn't seem to have done her homework, so I have to question the accuracy of the rest. For example, she defines "selecta" as "a late 1990s dance music term originally meaning a DJ". Anyone with even a passing interest in Ska ought to know that the term "selector" or "selecter" goes back much farther than that! (Nor is it synonymous with "DJ" in that context.) Similarly, she appears to be under the impression that the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer coined the expression "five by five"; but, of course, it's a ham radio term that means a strong and clear signal, and has certainly been used to mean "great" or "perfect" long before the television show used it. And let's not even get started on the chapter title "Plain Cyberspeaking"...

Still, if you find this book as cheap as I did, it's fun and worth a few bucks.

[2005-12-12] ( )