> And from a reader review at Amazon.com :
>> He pays as much attention to history as to linguistics, and  
>> presents evidence that large numbers of Celts were not  
>> exterminated by the small numbers of Vikings who invaded and  
>> eventually settled in the northern and eastern part of England,  
>> the Danelaw.


Has anyone ever suggested that "Vikings" had been busily  
exterminating "Celts" in eastern England, as this Amazon reviewer  
seems to have been imagining? :)


>> He demonstrates that English (unlike every other Germanic  
>> language) has grammatical features in common with Celtic  
>> languages--for instance, the "meaningless do" ("Do we eat  
>> apples?") and using gerunds (like "using" in "I'm using a gerund")  
>> as a normal present tense.


And isn't the form "using" in the phrase "I'm using a gerund"  
actually a present participle?  (OK, it has been argued that there is  
a fine and perhaps blurry line between present participles and  
gerunds in English, but still .....)

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
http://www.carlaz.com/