The concise Oxford companion to the English language
Consists of a compact, authoritative, and up-to-date source of information about the English language. Views English from an international perspective, covering Cockney to Creole and Aboriginal English to South Asian English. Covers a large historical range from Beowulf to Ebonics, Chaucer to Chomsky, and Latin to the World Wide Web. Provides substantial entries on key subjects such as American and British differences, computing, etymology, pidgin, poetry, sexism, Shakespeare's language, and slang. Includes features on place-names, borrowings from other languages, the evolution of the alphabet, and the story of the expression 'OK'
eBook, English, 1998
Oxford University Press, New York, 1998