The Mother Tongue English and how it got that way 應外四 李冠霆

Bill Bryson born date: December 8, 1951 a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, the English language and science.

bestselling books include: TRAVEL A Walk in the Woods Notes from a Small Island In a Sunburned Country LANGUAGE Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words SCIENCE A Short History of Nearly Everything MEMOIR The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

The history and the evolution of language, including: where words come from spelling pronunciation English as a world language wordplay swearing names…

British cot candy floss full stop (punctuation) Old Bill scarper fruit machine berk American baby’s crib cotton candy period policeman run away one-armed bandit idiot, boor

Difficulty  humorous tone I have before me a Japanese eraser which says: “Mr. Friendly Quality Eraser. Mr. Friendly Arrived!! He always stay near you, and steals in your mind to lead you a good situation.” On the bottom of the eraser is a further message: “We are ecologically minded. This package will self- destruct in Mother Earth.”

我手邊有個日本的橡皮擦，上面寫著；「友好 品質橡皮擦先生。友好先生來了！！他永遠都 會跟在你身邊，偷偷潛進你心裡並帶你到好的 情況。」在橡皮擦底部還寫著；「我們很注重 環保。這個包裝會在地球之母裡自我毀滅。」

Just a few a quick test, see if you can tell which of the following words are mispelled. supercede conceed procede idiocyncracy concensus accomodate thythym irresistable In fact, they all are. So was misspelled at the end of the preceeding paragraph. So was preceding just there. I’m sorry, I’ll stop. But I trust you get the point that English can be a maddeningly difficult language to spell correctly.

Just a few a quick test, see if you can tell which of the following words are mispelled. 很快地測一下看你能不能判斷下列單字中，哪些 字是「拚」錯 (mispelled) 的。 In fact, they all are. So was misspelled at the end of the preceeding paragraph. So was preceding just there. I’m sorry, I’ll stop. But I trust you get the point that English can be a maddeningly difficult language to spell correctly. 其實它們都拼錯了，不只是「尚」一段 (preceeding) 的「拚」，這裡的「尚」也是。啊， 抱歉，見好就收。但我想你應該已經體會到英文 是個多令人抓狂、很難拼對的語言。

O.K. used in different parts of speech: adjective Lunch was O.K. 午餐還可以 verb Can you O.K. this for me? 你可以幫我把它做好嗎？ noun I need your O.K. on this. 我需要你的批准。 interjection O.K., I hear you 好，我聽到了。 adverb We did O.K. 我們做的還可以。