David Crystal— If there’s one thing that seems to promote eloquent language more than anything else, that is found repeatedly in the speech of any orator I’ve ever listened to, that appears in every language I’ve ever studied, it’s the “rule of three.” Eloquence is infectious. You notice a clever
“Language is different from every other subject you’ll ever study, because language is a part of everything you’ll ever study,” David Crystal writes in A Little Book of Language, now available in paperback. Written to appeal to readers in their early teens and late 50s alike, Crystal’s book is a
Yesterday proved to be a big day for David Crystal’s popular new work, A Little Book of Language. Crystal spent the afternoon speaking with radio journalist Neal Conan on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Fielding questions from Conan and listeners alike, Crystal discussed at length how languages develop, how they
Today’s Washington Post included a strong review by Michael Dirda of David Crystal’s A Little Book of Language: “Like Gombrich’s A Little History of the World, Crystal’s A Little Book of Language may be for children (of all ages, as the saying goes), yet it’s by no means childish or juvenile. In other words,