Homegrown English: How Americans Invented Themselves and Their Language. This item is unavailable.Homegrown English: How Americans Invented Themselves and Their Language

An entertaining and authoritative tour of the American language.

The American language has a living history, and the acclaimed Homegrown English is its guidebook. Linguistic tour guide Jeffrey McQuain serves up anecdotes and little-known facts along the way as he tells the engaging and informative story of how the idiosyncrasies of the American character shaped the American language.

From Native American terms to current coinages, the American vocabulary mirrors both the strengths and the weaknesses of our national character. McQuain demonstrates how our invention of words matches our distinctive American traits--from tall-talking (absquatulation) to creativity (mixologist) to down-right orneriness (dad-blasted). Along the way, Homegrown English shows us who we were, who we are now, and who we may be in this new millennium.

Jeffrey McQuain has been a researcher and guest columnist for William Safire's "On Language" column, and is a renowned Shakespeare scholar. He is currently the editor of Copy Editor, and is the author of Coined by Shakespeare, the Word Workout series, and Power Language: Getting the Most Out of Your Words.