The wild, wacky, and sometimes baffling road the English language takes in its astonishing evolution. Did you know that the newly minted term in Japanese for visiting Tokyo’s Disneyland translates as “flogging the mouse”? Were you aware that words now move across languages not over decades but at cut-and-paste speed? Beginning with the eye-popping prediction that by 2015 half the world’s population will be learning English or speaking it, Mark Abley turns his eagle eye on how English is roaming wild around the world, sucking in words—vacuum-cleaner style—from wherever it can get them. Whether you’re speaking it as a first language in London, or a third in Singapore, you are affected by the language’s breakneck rate of change. From hip-hop lyrics to text messages and blogs, from the effects of global English and Asian English to Spanglish, the author investigates what the future is likely to hold for the ways we communicate. Evocative and thoughtful, yet always lively, this is a book for anyone who cherishes the words we use.