Covers the entire history of language, from the first crude murmurings of Neanderthal man thirty thousand years ago to explosion of English as a global language in this century. We learn why island, freight, and colonel are spelled in such patently unphonetic ways, and why four has a u in it but forty does not. Includes an Index.

(Key Words: Languages, English Language, History of English Language, Bill Bryson, Noah Webster, Samuel Johnson, Linguistics).