The Mother Tongue
by Bill Bryson · first published 1656
22mentions
12recommended by
15HN commenters
2010–2026first – last mentioned
80% recommend20% critical
Why HN recommends it
A light, humorous overview of English's history and quirks, with accessible examples such as swearing and regional differences. It is an easy, entertaining read for general readers curious about the language.
Common criticism: Linguists criticize it for many factual errors and urban myths, and call it weak as scholarship.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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In case anyone is interested in the history of the English Language, Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue (https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-English-How-That/dp/038...) is a pretty easy and informative read. Actually had it set as required reading in high school English of all things.
on “English is weirdly different from other languages” ↗The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson covers this pretty well. Along with covering many other quirks of the English language. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29.The_Mother_Tongue
on “When did Americans lose their British accents?” ↗You would enjoy Bill Bryson's book Mother Tongue. At one point (several hundred years ago) English was going through a period of simplification and rationalization but it was also during that period that dictionaries, newspapers etc become popular.…
on “The world's most influential languages” ↗I recommend three really good books: [1] The Stories of English by David Crystal http://www.amazon.com/Stories-English-David-Crystal/dp/15856... [2] The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-Bill-Bryson/dp/B001W6RRF... [3] The Story of English by McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil http://www.amazon.com/Story-English-Third-Revised/dp/0142002... All…
on “Why Chinese Is So Damned Hard” ↗A good book which also covers this (and is quite entertaining) is Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-Bill-Bryson/dp/038071543...
on “Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?” ↗…process that happens to you? If you consider other things that couple with "on" or "by", you'll see what I mean. Certainly English is charming, and rapidly evolving. You've likely read Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue", but if not, you might enjoy it. http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-English-How-That/dp/0380...
on “Matt Cutts Responds on Google's Paid Link Campaign” ↗I recommend reading The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_Tongue Each little area of England used to have its own spellings. Heck Shakespeare didn't even spell his own surname consistently! Eventually…
on “Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992)” ↗All of these are by Bill Bryson but none are about travel: Shakespeare: the World as Stage One Summer: America, 1927 The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way Made in America: an Informal History of the English Language in the US At Home: A Short History of Private Life
on “Ask HN: Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2019?” ↗In a slightly different direction, there's also The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, which is more of a humourous explanation of English quirks. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29.The_Mother_Tongue
on “Who Did This? (2017)” ↗Hmm. As a born Britisher I used to have this attitude until I read 'Mother Tongue' by Bill Bryson. He's an American who moved to the UK and has a good handle on the differences between American and British english.
on “Casual Viewing – Why Netflix looks like that” ↗…purely phonetic, which is nice, but what a shame about all those case endings. I am definitely biased as I learned Finnish as a teenager. Might as well take this opportunity to plug Bill Bryson’s book The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, it’s a fun read.
on “The strangest letter of the alphabet: The rise and fall of yogh” ↗…reason for some of the stranger grammatical usage of "fuck" in swearing is down to its substitution for religious words (e.g. "fuck you" for "damn you.") The chapter on swearing in Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue" is interesting and very amusing.
on “Workers bought sugar from supermarket to slow cement flood on Victoria Line” ↗And ‘Mother Tongue’ by Bill Bryson.
on “Great Vowel Shift” ↗I recommend reading Bill Bryson's book Mother Tongue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_Tongue One thing he notes was that originally there was no spelling consistency because there was no need due to limited written communication. Then as reading…
on “Auto-antonym” ↗This was a great read and it reminded me of Bill Bryson's book, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way. Such an awesome overview o how diverse and quirky and globally distributed English has become today. With the web and now the bots herding us into a more homogenized…
on “This blog is written in en-GB” ↗