The Secret History of the English Language

You might be a crank if:

1. You have one big idea, such as "What is is what was, unless you've got bone-chilling evidence to the contrary."

2. You view everything through the lens of this big idea (the English have always spoken English, etc.)

3. You insist that everyone else is an idiot if they don't share accept your big idea, and share your world-view.

M.J. Harper is a crank. He is also entertainingly rude, in a British sort of way. Which makes this book funny, and a fast read. It was originally published in the U.K. as The History of Britain Revealed, and others have reviewed the same text here:

The History of Britain Revealed

As one reviewer pointed out, his discussion of evolutionary biology is silly and uninformed. Even though I am not well-versed in the life sciences, I could tell he was missing more than a few key facts when he insisted that Darwinian theory was inherently unfalsifiable.

Unfortunately, that calls into question his other theories, which are neatly summarized in the product description. He completely ignores the role of phonetics, for example, as evidence of language change over time.

And after he reports a third and fourth imaginary conversation with some stuffy, addle-brained academic, I wondered if he hadn't actually had a few of those in real-life. Cranks are prone to such encounters, I would guess.

Still, I got the nagging feeling that some part of his theory might be correct. He does an excellent job at pointing out glaring problems with the received wisdom of English history, and his skewering of national creation myths is a must-read for budding historians.

Harper's book may be the literary equivalent of junk food, but then, we all need to pig out once in a while.