My favorite popularizing book about linguistics (after “Limits of Language”, that is)

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Language myths, mysteries and magic.

by Karen Stollznow. 269 pages. Price: too expensive.

Palgrave MacMillan 2014.

 

Originally, I bought this book in a sale, in order to hand it over to the people behind Linguistic Mythbusters. A book with such a title would contribution to their mission to debunk widespread but untrue ideas about languages. The book has “language myths” in the title, so it should fit their turf. But I thought, I will read it myself first. And while I was reading it, I thought, I am going to keep it for myself, it is too good to give away. In the meantime, it also appeared to me that Linguistic Mythbusters’ activity level was so low, that …