When and why did ‘thou’ disappear from Standard English? Would a Victorian Cockney have said ‘observation’ or ‘hobservation’? Was Jane Austen making a mistake when she wrote ‘Jenny and James are walked to Charmonth this afternoon’?This wonderfully entertaining history of the English language answers all these questions, showing how the many strands of English (Standard English, dialect and slang among them) developed to create the richly varied language of today.