The Story of Be
The Story of Be

Author: David Crystal

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-04-28

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 0192508636

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It's the most simple, unassuming, innocent-looking verb: 'to be'. Yet it is jam-packed with more different meanings, forms, and uses than any other English word. As he reveals be's multiple incarnations, David Crystal takes us to the heart of our flexible and changing language. He tells the intriguing story in 26 chapters, each linked to a particular usage. We meet circumstantial be ('how are you?'), numerical be ('two and two is four'), quotative be ('so I was like, "wow"'), and ludic be ('oh no he isn't!'), and a whole swarm of other meanings. Bringing the ideas to life are a host of examples from sources as varied as Beowulf, Jane Austen, pantomime, Hamlet (of course), and Star Wars, with cartoons from Ed McLachlan and Punch peppered throughout. Full of fascinating nuggets of information, it is a book to delight any lover of words and language.

To Be Or Not to Be, Innit
To Be Or Not to Be, Innit

Author: Martin Baum

Publisher: Bright Pen

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 9780755210824

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Here's what people are saying about 'TO BE OR NOT TO BE, INNIT' "This is well wicked" Shakespeare's Sister "Blinging" The Stratford upon Avon Massive "Booyakada" The Welsh Shakespearian Society "Bard in Stratford" The Daily Globe headline after Shakespeare disgraced himself after a night binge drinking with Anne Hathaway.

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me

Author: Bess Kalb

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2020-03-17

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0525654720

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: VOGUE • FORBES • BOOKPAGE • NEW YORK POST • WIRED “I have not been as profoundly moved by a book in years.” —Jodi Picoult Even after she left home for Hollywood, Emmy-nominated TV writer Bess Kalb saved every voicemail her grandmother Bobby Bell ever left her. Bobby was a force—irrepressible, glamorous, unapologetically opinionated. Bobby doted on Bess; Bess adored Bobby. Then, at ninety, Bobby died. But in this debut memoir, Bobby is speaking to Bess once more, in a voice as passionate as it ever was in life. Recounting both family lore and family secrets, Bobby brings us four generations of indomitable women and the men who loved them. There’s Bobby’s mother, who traveled solo from Belarus to America in the 1880s to escape the pogroms, and Bess’s mother, a 1970s rebel who always fought against convention. But it was Bobby and Bess who always had the most powerful bond: Bobby her granddaughter’s fiercest supporter, giving Bess unequivocal love, even if sometimes of the toughest kind. Nobody Will Tell You This But Me marks the creation of a totally new, virtuosic form of memoir: a reconstruction of a beloved grandmother’s words and wisdom to tell her family’s story with equal parts poignancy and hilarity.

"Oi, Mate, Gimme Some More!"

Author: Martin Baum

Publisher: Authors Online Limited

Published: 2010-06

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 9780755206032

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Writing from the enclaves of his beach-hut in Dorset, author Martin Baum is back, doing for Charles Dickens what he did for William Shakespeare in his best-selling book 'To Be or Not To Be, Innit - a Yoof-Speak Guide to Shakespeare'. As a broadcaster, satirist and journalist, Martin cares deeply about the classics and wants others to feel and experience the passion by introducing them to literature in a fun, accessible and inclusive way. "It was da best of times, and not being funny or nuffing, but it was da worst of times, to be honest." Da Tale of Two Turfs "Bah yada yada humbug." Da Christmas Carol "Annual moolah twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result good karma. Annual moolah twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds naff all and six, then you is gonna have to consolidate with Ocean Finance. Simples."

Linguistics: A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself
Linguistics: A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself

Author: David Hornsby

Publisher: Teach Yourself

Published: 2014-07-25

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1444180347

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Written by David Hornsby, who is a current Linguistics lecturer and researcher at the University of Kent, Linguistics - The Essentials is designed to give you everything you need to succeed, all in one place. It covers the key areas that students are expected to be confident in, outlining the basics in clear jargon-free English, and then providing added value features like summaries of key books, and even lists of questions you might be asked in your seminar or exam. The book uses a structure that mirrors many university courses on linguistics - with separate chapters focusing on linguistic thought, syntax, sound systems, morphology, semantics, pragmatics, language acquisition, and much more.

The Structure of Discourse-Pragmatic Variation
The Structure of Discourse-Pragmatic Variation

Author: Heike Pichler

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2013-04-08

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9027272182

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Everyday language use overflows with discourse-pragmatic features. Their frequency, form and function can vary greatly across social groups and change dramatically over time. And yet these features have not figured prominently in studies of language variation and change. The Structure of Discourse-Pragmatic Variation demonstrates the theoretical insights that can be gained into both the structure of synchronic language variation and the interactional mechanisms creating it by subjecting discourse-pragmatic features to systematic variationist analysis. Introducing an innovative methodology that combines principles of variationist linguistics, grammaticalisation studies and conversation analysis, it explores patterns of variation in the formal encoding of I DON’T KNOW, I DON’T THINK and negative polarity tags in a north-east England interview corpus. Speakers strategically exploit the formal variability of these constructions to signal subtle meaning differences and to index social identities closely linked to the variables’ and their variants’ functional compartmentalisation in the variety. The methodology, results and implications of this study will be of great interest to scholars working throughout variationist sociolinguistics, grammaticalisation and discourse analysis.

Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking
Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking

Author: Marianne Eloise

Publisher: Icon Books

Published: 2022-04-07

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1785788167

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'I FELT RECOGNISED ON EVERY PAGE, LEARNT SO MANY NEW THINGS, AND LAUGHED SO HARD I CHOKED ON MY WATER. READ THIS!!!' NAOISE DOLAN, AUTHOR OF EXCITING TIMES 'CANDID, WITTY ... A BRAVE BOOK THAT PUTS VULNERABILITY FULLY ON SHOW' INDEPENDENT Obsessive was, still is, my natural state, and I never wondered why. I didn't mind, didn't know that other people could feel at peace. I always felt like a raw nerve, but then, I thought that everyone did. Writer and journalist Marianne Eloise was born obsessive. What that means changes day to day, depending on what her brain latches onto: fixations with certain topics, intrusive violent thoughts, looping phrases. Some obsessions have lasted a lifetime, while others will be intense but only last a week or two. Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking is a culmination of a life spend obsessing, offering a glimpse into Marianne's brain, but also an insight into the lives of others like her. From death to Medusa, to Disneyland to fire, to LA to her dog, the essays explore the intersection of neurodivergence, fixation and disorder, telling the story of one life underpinned and ultimately made whole by obsession.

Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation
Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation

Author: Gisle Andersen

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2001-06-07

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9027298149

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This book combines theoretical work in linguistic pragmatics and sociolinguistics with empirical work based on a corpus of London adolescent conversation. It makes a general contribution to the study of pragmatic markers, as it proposes an analytical model that involves notions such as subjectivity, interactional and textual capacity, and the distinction between contextual alignment/divergence. These notions are defined according to how information contained in an utterance interacts with the cognitive environment of the hearer. Moreover, the model captures the diachronic development of markers from lexical items via processes of grammaticalisation, arguing that markerhood may be viewed as a gradient phenomenon. The empirical work concerns the use of like as a marker, as well as a characteristic use of two originally interrogative forms, innit and is it, which are used as attitudinal markers throughout the inflectional paradigm, despite the fact that they contain a third person singular neuter pronoun. The author provides an in-depth analysis of these features in terms of pragmatic functions, diachronic development and sociolinguistic variation, thus adding support to the hypothesis that adolescents play an important role in language variation and change.

Londonstani
Londonstani

Author: Gautam Malkani

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2007-08-28

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1440619905

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A talented new writer whose portrayal of the serious business of assimilation and young masculinity is disturbing and hilarious Hailed as one of the most surprising British novels in recent years, Gautam Malkani's electrifying debut reveals young South Asians struggling to distinguish themselves from their parents' generation in the vast urban sprawl that is contemporary London. Chronicling the lives of a gang of four young middle-class men-Hardjit, the violent enforcer; Ravi, the follower; Amit, who's struggling to come to terms with his mother's hypocrisy; and Jas, desperate to win the approval of the others despite lusting after Samira, a Muslim girl-Londonstani, funny, disturbing, and written in the exuberant language of its protagonists, is about tribalism, aggressive masculinity, integration, alienation, bling-bling economics, and "complicated family-related shit."

Navigating English Grammar
Navigating English Grammar

Author: Anne Lobeck

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-09-23

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1405159944

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An engaging and fresh take on the rules and politics of English grammar, written in lively prose. It goes a step further than most books on grammar by providing an overview of the field, with a discussion of historical and current debates about grammar, and how we define, discuss, and approach it. Presents a novel, inquiry-based approach to understanding speakers' unconscious knowledge of English grammar Makes lucid connections, when relevant, with current linguistic theory Integrates language change and variation into the study of grammar Examines historical sources of socially evaluative perceptions of grammar, as 'good' or 'bad', and notions of language authority Provides syntactic explanations for many modern punctuation rules Explores some of the current controversies about grammar teaching in school and the role of Standard English in testing and assessment