science

The Mother Tongue

The Mother Tongue is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Mother Tongue rather than just read about it. In short: The Mother Tongue is a 1990 book by Bill Bryson which compiles the history and origins of the English language and its various quirks. It is subtitled English And How It Got That Way.

Key takeaways

The Mother Tongue belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Mother Tongue to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Mother Tongue from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Mother Tongue is a 1990 book by Bill Bryson which compiles the history and origins of the English language and its various quirks. It is subtitled English And How It Got That Way. The book discusses the Indo-European origins of English, the growing status of English as a global language, the complex etymology of English words, the dialects of English, spelling reform, prescriptive grammar, and other topics including swearing. This account popularises the subject and makes it accessible to the lay reader, but it has been criticised for its many inaccuracies, such as the perpetuation of several urban myths. This book has also been published in the UK by Penguin Books under the title Mother Tongue: The English Language. Bryson has since followed up this work with Made in America.

References

External links The Mother Tongue on Google Books (preview)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Mother Tongue

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Mother Tongue claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Mother Tongue before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Mother Tongue ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Mother Tongue

In research: The Mother Tongue appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Mother Tongue in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Mother Tongue is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1991 non-fiction books, Books about the English language, Books by Bill Bryson, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Mother Tongue outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Mother Tongue in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Mother Tongue means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Mother Tongue out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Mother Tongue in simple terms?

The Mother Tongue is a 1990 book by Bill Bryson which compiles the history and origins of the English language and its various quirks. It is subtitled English And How It Got That Way.

Why does The Mother Tongue matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Mother Tongue?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Mother Tongue.