title: A Mouthful of Air: Language, Languages...Especially English
author:  Anthony Burgess 
description: Burgess, who invented a teenspeak for the gangs in his novel A Clockwork Orange, infects readers with his love of words in a delightful, wittily urbane romp through the world's languages, in particular "volatile and hospitable" English. This is several books in one: a painless primer on linguistics; a survey of tongues from Albanian to Welsh (spoken by King Arthur, a Romanized Celt); the story of alphabets and of language's evolution from prehistoric Indo-European to words like quark ; an exploration of how English became rich and flexible as Old English was transformed into what is spoken and written today. Chapters cover slang and taboo words, great dictionary makers, poetry, the Bible, film dubbing, how Shakespeare spoke his lines. Burgess also offers tips for learning foreign languages and suggestions for secondary-school English teachers. A Mouthful incorporates much of Language Made Plain , published some 30 years ago, but it contains a wealth of new material. <br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  ## Enderby's Dark Lady
  
  
    
  
  
  ### Anthony Burgess
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  "A brilliant and breathless performance…vintage Burgess… The whole performance
  stuns." – The Boston Globe
  
  
  "Readers will howl with laughter – a wickedly amusing book." – The Atlantic
  Monthly
  
  
  "Resurrected by popular request… Enderby the poet stalks about in this fourth
  Enderby novel, the mouthpiece, as usual, of his author's concern for language
  and sardonic, sometimes sour appraisal of modern popular culture… Burgess
  displays the uncanny ear for dialect for which he is noted and, with customary
  bravado, opens and closes his story with Will Shakespeare himself." –
  Publishers Weekly
  
  
  "Enderby / Burgess is an absolutely hilarious and sage observer of people,
  language and life: There are at least a dozen moments in this short book which
  will make you laugh out loud." – San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle
  
  
  "Enderby is one of Burgess' funniest literary inventions, combining verbal
  virtuosity with world-class eccentric