Crystal’s Curiosity Cabinet: An English Language Miscellany

Crystal’s Curiosity Cabinet: An English Language Miscellany by David Crystal is a quirky, original, and entertaining miscellany that celebrates the richness and oddities of the English language. Through over 150 random entries, Crystal explores amusing words, expressions, and linguistic phenomena—from comic alphabets and lipograms to wellerisms and peculiar collective nouns—while also touching on accents, dialects, etymology, proverbs, punctuation, and language change. Following the tradition of Victorian miscellanies, this book combines playfulness with scholarly insight, offering word lovers and fun-fact enthusiasts a delightful exploration of English, its history, and its ever-evolving nature.