Words in Time: A Social History of the English Vocabulary

by Geoffrey Hughes

Preface
Acknowledgments
Sources & Abbreviations
Introduction: Words & Social Change
Words of Conquest & Status: Semantic Legacy of the Middle Ages
Moneyed Words: Growth of Capitalism
The Mobilization of Words: Printing, the Reformation & the
Renaissance
The Fourth Estate: Journalism
Advertising: Linguistic Capitalism & Wordsmithing
Words & Power: Democracy & Language
Ideology & Propaganda
Conclusion: Verbicide & Semantic Engineering
Epigraph Sources
Bibliography
Subject Index
Word Index

Genres: Language, History, Linguistics

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Geoffrey Hughes graduated from Oxford, was an Honorary Research Associate at Harvard, and is Emeritus Professor of the History of the English Language at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is the author of An Encyclopedia of Swearing (2006), A History of English Words (Wiley-Blackwell, 2000), Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths and Profanity in English (1998), and Words in Time (1988). He is currently Honorary Research Associate at the University of Cape Town.

Reviews

[Stephen Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though published in 1988, there are a few outdated suppositions that throw the whole book into imperfection--that "pen" is quickly lapsing into obscurity, that "queer," "fairy," and "fag" have been entirely replaced by "gay." The focus on British English with only a few passing (sometimes imprecise) references to the other side of the ocean wasn't something I particularly loved either, nor the judgmental criticisms of modern English's fluidity (that words can playfully take on other parts of speech, verbs morphing into nouns and so forth)--there's a condemnation of the fluidity with no respect for its playful cleverness.

Anyway, aside from those personal setbacks, I enjoyed the book. The text is interesting and well-informed, particularly the analysis of Caxton's registers, Chaucer's dialects, Shakespeare's coinages, of Anglo-Saxon vs. Norman vs. Greek/Latin roots, of the secularization of church words, and of prominent uses of propaganda (notably surrounding the Church of England).

[M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite being "old" (1988) and published in an time when internet didn't even exist, this work is certainly profound and insightful. It deals with a fair amount of issues and reveals very uncanny and interesting diachronic events and their direct relation to the social develpments and their importance in shaping vocabulary and especially semantics. Perhaps a few concepts have changed in the most recent times and are outdated in this book, but nonetheless I'd say it's a must have for researchers of historical linguistics or similar fields.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a social history of the English language. Although there are many entertaining, enlightening and informative bits to it, the whole is so dense that it can hardly be recommended as a light read. Hughes' general points were familiar enough, but the detailing of examples was almost staggering. Mostly descriptive, Hughes writes disparagingly of the abuses of meaning performed in the service of capitalism, i.e. in advertising, and of politics.