Righting the Mother Tongue

<p>When did <em>ghost</em> acquire its silent <em>h</em>? Will cyberspace kill the one in <em>rhubarb</em>? And was it really rocket scientists who invented spell-check? </p><p>In <em>Righting the Mother Tongue</em> author David Wolman tells the cockamamie story of English spelling by way of a wordly adventure from English battlefields to Google headquarters. Along the way he joins spelling reformers picketing the national spelling bee visits the town in Belgium--not England--where the first English books were printed and takes a road trip with the boss at Merriam-Webster Inc. Wolman punctuates the journey with spelling wars waged by the likes of Samuel Johnson Noah Webster Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie.</p><p>Rich with history pop culture curiosity and humor <em>Righting the Mother Tongue</em> explores how English spelling came to be traces efforts to mend the code and imagines the shape of tomorrow's words.</p>