The Story of English in 100 Words

Google was launched in September 1998 (see§77). People were googling by the end of the year

And because of the way English has travelled the world, courtesy of its soldiers, sailors, traders and civil servants, several hundred languages have contributed to its lexical character. Some 80 per cent of English vocabulary is not Germanic at all.

English is a vacuum-cleaner of a language, whose users suck in words from other languages whenever they encounter them.

And people tried out fresh combinations. ‘A gaggle of geese?’ ‘What about a gaggle of women?’ ‘Write that down, Brother John.’ He did. A gaggle of women is recorded in a book written around 1470. An early sexist joke.

it’s raining cats and dogs

Its strength, to apply an old metaphor, is that readers obtain a clear view of the wood; its weakness is that they see very few of the trees.

There seem to be two main ways.

Any testimonial for a book, on front or back covers, was soon being called a blurb.

It’s never obvious how to spell the invented forms we use to talk about an object whose name we don’t know. Fortunately it isn’t a problem, most of the time, because these nonsense words are usually used only when we speak. ‘Where’s the doobry?’ someone might say, looking for the gadget which controls the television.

There is now an internet site called the Institution of Silly and Meaningless Sayings: ISMS.