Pomona; Or, The Future of English

In 1928, Basil De Selincourt turned his gaze forward and asked a simple, unsettling question: what becomes of English? Written before radio reshaped speech, before cinema globalized accent, before the internet invented an entirely new dialect, this slender volume reads now like a time capsule from a more innocent age of prophecy. De Selincourt examines language as a living thing, one that feeds on tradition while being starved by modernity. He traces how English absorbs, adapts, and occasionally devours its own history, arguing that the language's remarkable elasticity might be its greatest strength. His prose carries the gentle melancholy of a scholar watching his subject mutate beyond recognition, yet he refuses despair. The book sparkles with prescient observations alongside charming blind spots, offering a window into linguistic anxieties that remain remarkably current. It is a book for anyone who has ever wondered whether the language we speak today will still be recognizable to our grandchildren, and whether that recognition matters at all.