English and More English

Stanford University professor Seth Lerer has written a very interesting and accessible history of the English language, Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language (Columbia University Press, 2007).  We'd tell you more about it here, but it's more informative and entertaining to hear him talk about it, which you can do by clicking here.  While you're at it (especially if you're teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn this year) you should download the chapter from Lerer's book about "Mark Twain and the Making of the American Idiom."