Combines personal reflections, historical allusions, and traveler's observations about the author's encounters with language and its users throughout the English-speaking world.

Originally published: London : HarperPress, 2007.

List of illustrations --Preface -- Map -- 1. By hook or by crook : Gaerwen -- 2. Making a beeline : Menai -- 3. We want information : Portmeiron -- 4. Where are you from? : Welshpool -- 5. Good evening, each : Birmingham -- 6. Book-browser syndrome : Hay -- 7. Now Godiva was a lady : Leominster -- 8. The robot's not working : Risbury -- 9. Who was Leonard Slye? : Stratford -- 10. Shall we shog? : Kolkata -- 11. A rash of dermatologists : Arden -- 12. A wheelbarrow called Wilberforce : Lichfield -- 13. How do you like your eggs? : San Francisco -- 14. My husband is without : Łódź -- 15. I'm Jack : Llangollen -- On the way : references and sources -- Index of places -- Index of people and characters -- Index of topics.