The Prodigal Tongue

Dispatches from the Future of English

By: Mark Abley

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Paperback | 5 February 2009 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
262 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.7 x 13.0 x 1.7

Paperback

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Mark Abley takes the reader on a world-wide trip like no other from Singapore to Japan, Oxford to Los Angeles, through the web and even back in time.

As much a travel book as a linguistic study, this book goes beyond grammar and vocabulary; more importantly, this book is about the people of the world. On his travels Abley encounters bloggers, translators, novelists, therapists, dictionary makers, hip-hop performers and web-savvy teenagers.

He talks to a married couple who were passionately corresponding online before they met in 'meatspace.' And he listens to teenagers, puzzling out the words they coin in chat rooms and virtual worlds. Lively, evocative, passionate and hilarious, this is a book for everyone who cherishes the words we use.

About the Author

Mark Abley, a winner of Canada's National Newspaper Award, has written for the TLS, the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Montreal Gazette, and other publications. He is the author of one other book on language - the unanimously acclaimed Spoken Here. He speaks English, French, and a little Welsh.

Industry Reviews

"The Prodigal Tongue takes the reader on an informative and frequently entertaining journey."
-- "Edmonton Journal
"
"[A] witty and well-documented treatise on the ways -- some of them alarming -- in which the English language is changing."
-- "Winnipeg Free Press
""As a poet, journalist, editor, intrepid traveller, scholar and endlessly curious spirit, Abley brings an appropriately eclectic perspective to the subject. ... Writing as an inquisitive, bemused Everyman, Abley leads us on a lively intellectual journey through uncharted territory, his comfort in the zone of ambiguity making him the ideal travel guide."
-- "The Gazette" (Montreal)
"Well written . . . provocative."
-- William Safire, "The New York Times"
"Attuned to pop culture as well as to scholarship, Abley proves a deft social anthropologist."
-- "The Daily Telegraph"

"From the Hardcover edition."

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