One thing leads to another. Reading lead to many books. Many books lead to a Kindle. A Kindle lead to blogs. A blog lead to a blog site that included a blog reader of other blogs.
On a different thread, books by P.G. Wodehouse are a delight. Bertie Wooster and his butler Jeeves are famous all over the world but Wodehouse ('wood house) also wrote many other wonderful books (such as "The Plot that Thickened" and "Lord Emsworth and Others") but also plays on Broadway and scripts in Hollywood. When I found a recent biography of the prodigious and witty writer by Robert McCrum, I found a copy and read it, all 384 pages about the life of an interesting man who lived to be 93 years old. Then, when I found a blog by McCrum, I added to it to those I follow on my blog. There are over 30 now but still millions and millions from which to add.
McCrum has also written about the use of English worldwide. His recent blog on "Globish" got my attention. Other books have commented on the widespread use of English in places you wouldn't expect, such as negotiations between the Chinese and the Russians on their mutual border. In that situation and many others, English may be acceptable to both parties while neither wants the talks to be held in the other party's tongue. Point of honor and such. As "The Story of English" makes clear, French was at one time a popular international language but the spread of air travel by Americans and others and the push given by the American creation and spread of the internet has caused English to overtake French. In some places, this development has has not gone over all that well with the French. But, Lynn and I were actually thanked by some French citizens in 1998 for speaking English with them. They said they wanted, needed to improve their English. A Frenchman, Jean-Paul Nerriere, has written "Don't Speak English, Parlez Globish". When a Frenchman writes in French about the global power of English, new things are happening. The book is available but is not in Kindle format. There is a book by McCrum on the phenomenom coming out on May 24 but it is not slated for Kindle yet.
Nerriere has labeled the English that is spreading around the globe a "decaffeinated English", not the exactly 'correct' English taught in British and American schools but useful all over and understood by millions.
