Description

This revolutionary book sets out to persuade the reader that the English language is not the result of years of haphazard evolution, a chaotic atom-like conglomeration of words, but a carefully planned whole in which each word has its place and is connected by a consistent set of rules. It is not by chance that 'earth' is 'heart' or 'soil' is 'soul', for instance, or that 'salt' makes us 'last' ('You are the salt of the earth') but 'last' is in fact 'lst'. This book journeys from the Book of Genesis and Creation to Revelation and the Last Judgement through the English language, suggesting that language has something to tell us about the environment and that he who would be true to himself is inexorably pushed out on to the margins. First published in 2007, it is now reprinted. A later book, The Life of a Translator (2013), also looks at English word connections and discusses coincidence in translation.