A review by sneakysquid
Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women's Words by Jenni Nuttall

informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

A fairly good pop linguistic book. As a note, this book focuses almost exclusively on British English from ENGLAND, a fact I did not realize until I had started. So note that some of the slang and examples referenced will mean nothing to you. Also, the book does not go through any effort to expand into non-British English slang, and only occasionally references French, Scottish or Irish books as expanded etymological references.

A specific example sits with me as I remember being really confused by the phrase a "common term fishwives" as I had never heard this term in my life and had a full paragraph based on the concept of 'gossip' that seemed to imply I should recognize it immediately. 
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