The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

In Chapter 14, Bryson examines swear words and frequently compares how such words developed in English as opposed to other languages. While some cultures do not use swear words, the majority do and have for centuries. In English, there are roughly 20 words that are considered swear words, and the list doubles if you add words “that are not explicitly taboo but are still socially doubtful” (240). According to Bryson, “swearing seems to have some near-universal qualities. In almost all cultures, swearing involves one or more of the following: filth, the forbidden (particularly incest), and the sacred” (240). Although it is difficult to trace the usage of swear words because they were not always recorded and academic research is lacking, we do know that many in use today would be understood by the earliest speakers of English (241).

One of the most unique aspects concerning the history of swearing in English is how “the emotional charge attached to words can change dramatically over time (243). Many modern swear words would have been considered harmless and even acceptable centuries ago. On the other hand, “words that seem entirely harmless now were once capable of exciting considerable passion” (243). Long ago, the most profane examples of swearing were those which came from a religious context or took on religious overtones. However, much of this religious swearing became harmless expressions.

In Chapter 15, Bryson discusses English word games. The most popular of these games, the crossword puzzle, was invented by Arthur Wynne in 1913. Bryson states that “according to a Gallup poll, the crossword is the most popular sedentary recreation, occupying thirty million Americans for part of every day” (253). Despite the rising popularity of crosswords, they did not become a regular feature in the most highly circulated newspapers for a number of years. According to Bryson, “only one other word game has ever challenged the crossword puzzle for popularity and respectability, and that’s Scrabble” (254). Invented in 1931 by Alfred Butts but not published until 1953, Scrabble is a board game that awards the formation of obscure words (254).

Other varieties of wordplay include anagrams (rearranging letters to form new words), cryptograms (ciphers or codes), rebus (a combination of letters and images meant to signify a phrase), puns, riddles, tongue-twisters, and what Bryson describes as the most demanding, the palindrome (256). A palindrome is the formation of a word or sentence which reads the same, using the same order of letters, forward and backward. Bryson also discusses unique alterations of English that became widespread. Around the turn of the 20th century, an invented language called “boontling”—which made up new words to replace older ones—became commonly used in and around the small town of Boonville, California. Similarly, the rhyming slang used in the East End of London by a large swath of working-class people known as Cockney—because of their accent—became widely used in the mid-19th century and continues to exist in various forms.

In the final chapter, Bryson explores the controversial issues that arise when considering the future of the English language. He explains that beginning in the 1980s, a movement sought to mandate English as the official language of the United States. A lobbying group called “U.S. English” was successful in raising large sums of money and having the language declared official in several states by the end of the decade (270). While Bryson acknowledges some of the drawbacks to bilingual education for children and having so many citizens unable to speak the mother tongue, he also suggests that such efforts to depress languages other than English in America might be nothing more than a “thinly veiled cover for racism, or at least rampant xenophobia” (271).

Bryson argues that “perhaps a more pressing concern ought to be not with the English used by Hispanics and other ethnic groups so much as the quality of English used in America generally” (272). At the same time that concerns about foreign languages “encroaching on” American life were taking place in the 1980s, overall English test scores for high school students were at an all-time low. Similar concerns that English would fracture into “a collection of related but mutually incomprehensible sublanguages” have been around for centuries (274). This concern is still present, as it relates to British and American English drifting apart, but Bryson makes the case that it ignores “the very obvious consideration that communications have advanced a trifle” (276). In other words, mass media serves as a binding influence that is likely to bring the different dialects of English closer than further apart (276).