The Story of English in 100 Words

gazette 134

gotcha 227

grammar 73

grand 222

hello 163

information(s) 89

ink-horn 107

jail 59

jazz 245

lakh 123

lea 5

loaf 10

LOL 241

lunch 169

matrix 95

mead 20

mega 225

merry 23

mipela 178

money 82

muggle 248

music 85

OK 183

ology 186

out 13

PC 230

polite 142

pork 50

potato 102

rep 149

riddle 26

robot 199

roe 1

royal 80

schmooze 181

shibboleth 119

skirt 57

skunk 116

species 156

speech-craft 191

street 16

Strine 216

sudoku 247

swain 48

taffeta 87

take away 62

tea 137

trek 160

Twittersphere 254

UFO 203

undeaf 113

unfriend 253

valentine 76

Watergate 205

webzine 235

wee 70

what 29

wicked 68

y’all 189

yogurt 132

Also by David Crystal

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of language

The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language

The stories of English

The fight for English

Think on my words: an introduction to Shakespeare’s language

Txting: the gr8 db8

By hook or by crook: a journey in search of English

A little book of language

Evolving English: one language, many voices.

Begat: the King James Bible and the English language

Internet linguistics

Just a phrase I’m going through: my life in language

Copyright

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by

PROFILE BOOKS LTD

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Copyright © David Crystal, 2011

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Clays, Bungay, Suffolk

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.