The English Is Coming

English has fast become the number one language for everything from business and science, diplomacy and education, entertainment and environmentalism to socializing and beyond—virtually any human activity unfolding on a global scale. Worldwide, nonnative speakers of English now outnumber natives three to one; and in China alone, more people use English than in the United States—a remarkable feat for a language that got its start as a mongrel tongue on an island fifteen hundred years ago. Through the fascinating stories of thirty English words used and understood in nearly all corners of the globe, The English Is Coming! takes readers on an eye-opening journey across culture and commerce, war and peace, and time and space. These mini-histories shed new light on everyday words: the strange turns of fate by which their meanings evolved and their new roles as the building blocks of the first language ever to forge a global community. Exploring such familiar terms as shampoo (from a Hindi word for scalp and body hygiene long practiced in India); robot (coined by Czech painter Josef Capek for his brother Karel’s 1921 play about man-made creatures); credit (rooted in a prehistoric phrase of sacred significance: "to put heart into"); and dozens of others, Dunton-Downer reveals with clarity and humor how these linguistic artifacts embody the resilience, appeal, adoptability, and wild inclusiveness that English, through a series of historical accidents, gained on its road to worldwide reach. These words explain not only how English has managed to link our distant and often disparate pasts but also how it is propelling humankind to a future that we can, for the first time, talk about and shape in a language that now belongs to all of us: Global English. Perfect for culture buffs, armchair travelers, and language lovers alike, The English Is Coming! is sure to inspire truly global conversations for decades to come.

Dunton-Downer offers a lively look at the history of the English language through an in-depth study of 50 words that are now part of the global lexicon.

"A lighthearted account of the author's true story of herself, a naive English teen, fresh from home and convent school, venturing forth with a girlfriend to the California of the nineteen-fifties."--Page 4 of cover

NORTHERN LIGHTS TRILOGY BOOK THREE All good things must end. The bad too. Peter and Stine had better hang onto each other a little while longer though if they want to avoid being hanged altogether - they've made it this far with the hounds at their heels and breaking free is their only option now. Success can lead to hubris, of this they are all too aware, but while their enemies can make mistake after mistake, they can fail only once. Yes, all things must end, good and bad. How else can a duo with this much blood on their hands hope to get a fresh start?

Prepare yourslef for discoveries and new adventures with this incredible book about the true origin of wanderlust. This edition forms a complete history of the earliest start and progress of navigation, discovery, and commerce, by sea and land, from the earliest ages to the early 19th century. First part of the work covers voyages and travels of discovery in the middle ages; from the era of Alfred, King of England, in the ninth century to that of Don Henry of Portugal at the commencement of the fourteenth century. Second part deals with general voyages and travels chiefly of discovery; from the era of Don Henry, in 1412, to that of George III. in 1760. The rest of the work has some particular voyages and travels arranged in systematic order, Geographical and Chronological, and studies voyages during the era of George III conducted upon scientific principles, by which the Geography of the globe has been nearly perfected.