Talk on the Wild Side cover art

Talk on the Wild Side

Why Language Won't Do as It's Told

Preview
Free with 30-day trial
Prime logo New to Audible Prime Member exclusive:
2 credits with free trial
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks
Download titles to your library and listen offline
₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Talk on the Wild Side

Written by: Lane Greene
Narrated by: Lane Greene
Free with 30-day trial

₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for ₹667.71

Buy Now for ₹667.71

About this listen

Language is a wild animal: rough, ambiguous, inconsistent in countless ways. But that just makes it all the more tempting to tame it. Many have tried, from sticklers for supposedly correct grammar to inventors of supposedly perfect languages; from software engineers working on machine translation to governments that see language management as politics by another means.

But when you enter the lair of a wild beast, you can be lucky to escape with your wits. Join Lane Greene on a journey of discovery into the deep strangeness of language. Learn why grammar rules can never capture the extraordinary variety of ordinary usage.

See what happens when you try to design a language that really makes sense. Find out why, for all the talk of decline in English, no language in recorded history has ever gone to the dogs, or ever could. And learn the fate of those bold individuals who, through heroism or ignorance, ventured to teach their tongue some new tricks.

©2018 Robert Lane Greene (P)2019 Audible, Ltd
Linguistics Social Sciences
No reviews yet