The Adventure of English - Melvyn Bragg

I chanced upon some of the TV series the other day, and the book had been sitting on my bookshelf for a while so it seemed a good time to read it.
The story of the English language is told with great verve and readability.

By necessity, the tale takes in a good deal of social and political history, which I also enjoyed. I really should read more about truly heroic figures such as Wycliffe and Tyndale, and the existence of Gullah was a revelation.

One tiny quibble; the word "tip" for gratuity is not an acronym for "to insure prompt service". Michael Quinion suggests that it is more likely that it stems from a pickpocket's trick of unobtrusively passing small amounts of cash from one gang member to another.