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"Through the fascinating stories of thirty English words used and understood in nearly all corners of the globe, The English Is Coming! takes readers on an eye-opening journey across culture and commerce, war and peace, and time and space. These mini-histories shed new light on everyday words: the strange turns of fate by which their meanings evolved and their new roles as the building blocks of the first language ever to forge a global community. Exploring such familiar terms as shampoo (from a Hindi word for scalp and body hygiene long practiced in India); robot (coined by Czech painter Josef Capek for his brother Karel's 1921 play about man-made creatures); credit (rooted in a prehistoric phrase of sacred significance: "to put heart into"); and dozens of others, Dunton-Downer reveals with clarity and humor how these linguistic artifacts embody the resilience, appeal, adoptability, and wild inclusiveness that English, through a series of historical accidents, gained on its road to worldwide reach. These words explain not only how English has managed to link our distant and often disparate pasts but also how it is propelling humankind to a future that we can, for the first time, talk about and shape in a language that now belongs to all of us: Global English"--Page 2 of cover.
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Previews available in: English
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The English is coming!: how one language is sweeping the world
2010, Touchstone Book
in English
- 1st Touchstone hardcover ed.
1439176655 9781439176658
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English Is Coming!: How One Language Is Sweeping the World
2010, Simon & Schuster, Limited
in English
1439176728 9781439176726
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Book Details
Table of Contents
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Includes bibliographical references (pages 299-311) and index.
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- Created May 23, 2018
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February 7, 2024 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
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