TY  - BOOK
AU  - Butterfield,Jeremy
TI  - Damp squid : the English language laid bare
SN  - 9780199574094 
U1  - 420 
PY  - 2008///
CY  - New York
PB  - Oxford University Press
KW  - English language
KW  - English language - Usage
N1  - A sea change: the corpus -- Size matters: how many words? -- Your Roman-Saxon-Danish-Norman English: where do words come from? -- Beware of heard: why spelling wobbles -- Which is to be master? meaning in context -- Words of a feather: word groupings -- Cats and dogs: idiomatic phrases -- Grammar that can govern even kings: what do we mean by grammar? -- Style wars: usages people hate
N2  - Delves into the way the English language developed throughout history and the manner in which it is used in the modern day through observations about its commonalities and peculiarities, enhanced with charts, examples, spelling, and idioms; Using evidence from the world's largest language databank, the Oxford English Corpus, Butterfield uncovers fascinating facts about the English language. Where does our vocabulary come from? How is our language really being used? How do word meanings change? This entertaining book has the authoritative answers to key questions about our language
ER  -