Ebook The Story of Language

My purpose is to give, in a series of papers and with as little use as may be of technical terms, some account of the rise of human speech from simple to more complex forms, and of the connection between the progress of language and the progress of the human race.

There are many people to whom not only irregular verbs and the bewildering mysteries of the subjunctive, but all discussion of mere words can be little else than a weariness to the spirit. Others, however, - and these, men of wit and wisdom, - find as much food for the mind in matter of this kind as the sweet singer of Avon would have us find in stones and brooks.

What says the genial Holmes?