The Quote Verifier
The Quote Verifier

Author: Ralph Keyes

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Published: 2007-04-01

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1429906170

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Our language is full of hundreds of quotations that are often cited but seldom confirmed. Ralph Keyes's The Quote Verifier considers not only classic misquotes such as "Nice guys finish last," and "Play it again, Sam," but more surprising ones such as "Ain't I a woman?" and "Golf is a good walk spoiled," as well as the origins of popular sayings such as "The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings," "No one washes a rented car," and "Make my day." Keyes's in-depth research routinely confounds widespread assumptions about who said what, where, and when. Organized in easy-to-access dictionary form, The Quote Verifier also contains special sections highlighting commonly misquoted people and genres, such as Yogi Berra and Oscar Wilde, famous last words, and misremembered movie lines. An invaluable resource for not just those with a professional need to quote accurately, but anyone at all who is interested in the roots of words and phrases, The Quote Verifier is not only a fascinating piece of literary sleuthing, but also a great read.

Hemingway Didn't Say That
Hemingway Didn't Say That

Author: Garson O'Toole

Publisher: Little A

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781503933415

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"Extensive and brilliant investigations...a tour de force of detective work...Mr. O'Toole is a beacon of accuracy who should inspire all readers who prefer their facts real rather than phony." --Wall Street Journal Everywhere you look, you'll find viral quotable wisdom attributed to icons ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Mark Twain, from Cicero to Woody Allen. But more often than not, these attributions are false. Garson O'Toole--the Internet's foremost investigator into the dubious origins of our most repeated quotations, aphorisms, and everyday sayings--collects his efforts into a first-ever encyclopedia of corrective popular history. Containing an enormous amount of original research, this delightful compendium presents information previously unavailable to readers, writers, and scholars. It also serves as the first careful examination of what causes misquotations and how they spread across the globe. Using the massive expansion in online databases as well as old-fashioned gumshoe archival digging, O'Toole provides a fascinating study of our modern abilities to find and correct misinformation. As Carl Sagan did not say, "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

I Love It When You Talk Retro
I Love It When You Talk Retro

Author: Ralph Keyes

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2009-03-31

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 1429952474

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An entertaining and informative book about the fashion and fads of language Today's 18-year-olds may not know who Mrs. Robinson is, where the term "stuck in a groove" comes from, why 1984 was a year unlike any other, how big a bread box is, how to get to Peyton Place, or what the term Watergate refers to. I Love It When You Talk Retro discusses these verbal fossils that remain embedded in our national conversation long after the topic they refer to has galloped off into the sunset. That could be a person (Mrs. Robinson), product (Edsel), past bestseller (Catch-22), radio or TV show (Gangbusters), comic strip (Alphonse and Gaston), or advertisement (Where's the beef?) long forgotten. Such retroterms are words or phrases in current use whose origins lie in our past. Ralph Keyes takes us on an illuminating and engaging tour through the phenomenon that is Retrotalk—a journey, oftentimes along the timelines of American history and the faultlines of culture, that will add to the word-lover's store of trivia and obscure references. "The phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" is a mystery to young people today, as is "45rpm." Even older folks don't know the origins of "raked over the coals" and "cut to the chase." Keyes (The QuoteVerifier) uses his skill as a sleuth of sources to track what he calls "retrotalk": "a slippery slope of puzzling allusions to past phenomena." He surveys the origins of "verbal fossils" from commercials (Kodak moment), jurisprudence (Twinkie defense), movies (pod people), cartoons (Caspar Milquetoast) and literature (brave new world). Some pop permutations percolated over decades: Radio's Take It or Leave It spawned a catch phrase so popular the program was retitled The $64 Question and later returned as TV's The $64,000 Question. Keyes's own book Is There Life After High School? became both a Broadway musical and a catch phrase. Some entries are self-evident or have speculative origins, but Keyes's nonacademic style and probing research make this both an entertaining read and a valuable reference work." --Publishers Weekly

The Verifiers
The Verifiers

Author: Jane Pek

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2022-02-22

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0593313798

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ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S BEST MYSTERY BOOKS OF THE YEAR • Introducing Claudia Lin: a sharp-witted amateur sleuth for the 21st century. This debut novel follows Claudia as she verifies people's online lives, and lies, for a dating detective agency in New York City. Until a client with an unusual request goes missing.... “The world of social media, big tech and internet connectivity provides fertile new ground for humans to deceive, defraud and possibly murder one another.... Well rendered and charming.... Original and intriguing.” —The New York Times Book Review Claudia is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency. A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she's landed her ideal job. But when a client vanishes, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. Part literary mystery, part family story, The Verifiers is a clever and incisive examination of how technology shapes our choices, and the nature of romantic love in the digital age.

Alara's Call
Alara's Call

Author: Kristen Stieffel

Publisher: Love2readlove2write Publishing, LLC

Published: 2017-09-19

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9781943788194

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Alara is assigned abroad, but the prime minister jeopardizes her safety by coercing her into a diplomatic mission. It's a ruse. The trip will end with her marriage to the crown prince of a foreign nation, where women are oppressed. All for a trade agreement. Alara escapes, but soldiers are under orders to capture Alara by any means necessary.

Computational Complexity
Computational Complexity

Author: Sanjeev Arora

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-04-20

Total Pages: 609

ISBN-13: 0521424267

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New and classical results in computational complexity, including interactive proofs, PCP, derandomization, and quantum computation. Ideal for graduate students.

War Memoirs
War Memoirs

Author: David Lloyd George

Publisher: War Memoirs

Published: 2001-11

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781931541381

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Churchill by Himself
Churchill by Himself

Author: Winston S. Churchill

Publisher: Rosetta Books

Published: 2013-09-19

Total Pages: 1140

ISBN-13: 079533432X

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Quotations by the great statesman who helped lead Britain through two world wars: “Magisterial . . . Should be in the library of every Churchill aficionado” (American Spectator). We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . . Millions have been moved by these words—and by the hundreds of speeches given by Winston S. Churchill to rally the British public, spur its government to armament against Hitler, and defend the causes for which he believed. Churchill by Himself is the first collection of quotations from a leader who had as much talent for wit as he had for inspiration and exhortation. Edited by renowned Churchill scholar Richard Langsworth, this volume is the definitive collection of important quotes from one of the twentieth century’s most persuasive and brilliant orators, whose writings earned him a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.