… You will search in vain in this book for any mention of bilabial plosives, fricatives, or laterals… I am concerned with why we speak as we do, and what effect it has on us. Is it true, as George Bernard Shaw famously said, that “it is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him” – and if it is, does it have to be? …