Summary of Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 The English language is full of traps for the unwary foreigner.

Any language where the unassuming word fly signifies an annoying insect, a means of travel, and a critical part of a gentleman's apparel is asking to be mangled.#2 The world is expropriating words and phrases at a rapid rate, and English has become the most global of languages.

For non-English speakers, English has become the common tongue.#3 The English language has a rich vocabulary that allows speakers to distinguish between different shades of meaning.

Other languages, however, have words that allow them to differentiate between things that leak into and things that leak out of something.#4 English has a reputation for being an extremely flexible language.

It is able to extract maximum work from a word by making it do double duty as both a noun and a verb.