Bill Bryson, author of the national bestseller The Mother Tongue, takes an informed and affectionate look at the history of the U.S. from the perspective of language and popular culture..

Bill Bryson, author of the national bestseller The Mother Tongue, takes an informed and affectionate look at the history of the U.S. from the perspective of language and popular culture..

**"A literate exploration of why we use--or mangle--our native tongue."--USA Today **

Bill Bryson celebrates America's magnificent offspring in the book that reveals once and for all how a dusty western hamlet with neither woods nor holly came to be known as Hollywood...and exactly why Mr. Yankee Doodle call his befeathered cap "Macaroni."