Title: Birding English: Exploring the History of a Language Through 50 Birds (Bur Oak Book)
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Publication Date: 2026
Language: English
ISBN 10: 1685970699
ISBN 13: 9781685970697
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

What do words like unkindness, haggard, asparagus, jizz, and the singular they have to do with birds? Quite a lot, actually. From Old English roots and Shakespearean idioms to Victorian slang and modern online lingo, Birding English charts a dynamic course through English’s past, present, and future by admiring the plumage of falcons, the songs of sparrows, and the flight of ducks. With each of his fifty mini essays, Jeremy Withers uses birds as a point of entry into a key moment in the development of English: its origins in the Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic languages, the influence of writers like Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare, the creation of English’s first dictionaries and grammar books, and the arrival of rhyming slang and portmanteaus. Ideal for word nerds and bird nerds alike, this book will enchant anyone who’s ever been captivated by the song of a bird or the song of a word.

About the Author

Jeremy Withers is associate professor of English at Iowa State University. He is author of Futuristic Cars and Space Bicycles: Contesting the Road in American Science Fiction. Withers lives in Ames, Iowa.

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