The 100 Words That Make the English

Englishness is an ancient and powerful concept, but no one seems sure exactly what it means in the twenty-first century. In exploring our national identity, Tony Thorne has compiled a fascinating compendium of the hundred words and phrases that have become the cornerstones of modern English, and have been used - sometimes deliberately, but often inadvertently - to stake out our common ground, to define what makes us essentially English, and thus different from those beastly foreigners who lurk just off our shores.

Tony Thorne is Language and Innovation consultant and director of the New Language Archive at King's College, London. He broadcasts regularly on radio, including for the BBC, and has been a Hollywood script consultant and an EU adviser on language and communication.