Description

This study by two eminent scholars delves into the highly complex process of expressing thought by means of language.The authors, former members of the Harvard faculty, explore all facets of the commonplace miracle of articulated speech.Opening with a brief inquiry into the origins of language,they analyze the popularization of learned words, dialects and slang, Latin in English, trends and fashions in language,cognates and borrowed words, the development of words,the degeneration of meaning, euphemism and hyperbole, folk etymology, and doublets ad homonyms. They conclude with two intriguing charters on words derived from the names of animals and from places or persons.