OUTRAGEOUS, illogical and idiosyncratic - three words that perfectly describe the way we spell words in English - particularly here in England.

But James Essinger throws a great deal of light on the seeming chaos in his fascinating book Spellbound in which he explains how our alphabet and language came into being and then developed over 1,500 years.

The evolution of our language may even be speeding up. Take, for example, the whole new form of spelling that has been adopted by texters.

Essinger reminds us that such texts are nothing like as subversive as many of today's accepted spellings which at one time would also have been considered trendy and outrageous.

He also reveals so many words that we assume to be English and yet have simply been borrowed from othersalcohol (Arabic), bizarre (Basque), hooligan (Irish), robot (Czech), taboo (Polynesia), anorak (Eskimo) and amen (Hebrew) are just a few examples.

The mischievous George Bernard Shaw once considered that we would be entitled to spell "fish" as "ghoti" (think of the words cough, women and nation and then apply).

As well as looking back, Essinger also looks forward and considers how our language may develop in the future.

Essinger, however, doubts that new technology will have any real effect on our spelling.

Spellbound by James Essinger is published in hardback by Robson Books at £9.99.