Welcome, Playing Books listeners. Prepare to have your mind blown about the very language you are reading this in.
You think English is just a blend of German and French words? Think again. It's a glorious, chaotic mutt—a linguistic Frankenstein stitched together by invading armies, lazy speakers, and historical accidents.
Join us for an exhilarating ride through John McWhorter’s brilliant and irreverent book, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English.
McWhorter, a world-class linguist, unearths the shocking truth: English is structurally bizarre. We're talking weird on a global scale. We're going to pull back the curtain on the linguistic crime scenes that gave us:
The Viking Vandalism: How Norse invaders didn't just add words, they smashed our sophisticated Old English grammar, leaving us with shockingly simple verbs. Did the Vikings ruin English, or save it?
The Celtic Curveball: That tiny word 'do' that we use constantly ("Do you like it? I do not.")? It's a bizarre feature almost unique to English, and we owe it all to the influence of low-status Celtic speakers.
The Magnificent Mess: Why the things that make English hard to learn for non-native speakers are exactly what prove its wild, untamed, and truly magnificent history.
If you love history, language, etymology, or just a good intellectual thrill ride, you cannot miss this episode. Find out why your everyday vocabulary is a constant reminder of invasions, chaos, and linguistic evolution.
Ready to argue with your high school English teacher? Purchase your copy of Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue today. Please, support the author and the podcast, purchase the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3KWyWlo, or find it at your favorite local bookstore.
Please, follow and subscribe to the Playing Books podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts. Did this episode change how you think about the English language? Share this episode with a friend and send us your feedback—we love to hear your linguistic 'A-HA!' moments, please.
Thank you.
