Verbal Advantage
Verbal Advantage

Author: Charles Harrington Elster

Publisher: Random House Reference

Published: 2009-02-04

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 030756097X

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First time in book form! A successful program for teaching 3,500 vocabulary words that successful people need to know, based on America's #1 bestselling audio vocabulary series. "People judge you by the words you use." Millions of Americans know this phrase from radio and print advertising for the Verbal Advantage audio series, which has sold over 100,000 copies. Now this bestselling information is available for the first time in book form, in an easy-to-follow, graduated vocabulary building program that teaches an outstanding vocabulary in just ten steps. Unlike other vocabulary books, Verbal Advantage provides a complete learning experience, with clear explanations of meanings, word histories, usages, pronunciation, and more. Far more than a cram session for a standardized test, the book is designed as a lifetime vocabulary builder, teaching a vocabulary shared by only the top percentage of Americans, with a proven method that helps the knowledge last. A 10-step vocabulary program teaches 500 key words and 3,000 synonyms. Lively, accessible writing from an expert author and radio personality. From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Prodigal Tongue
The Prodigal Tongue

Author: Lynne Murphy

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-04-10

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1524704881

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CHOSEN BY THE ECONOMIST AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR An American linguist teaching in England explores the sibling rivalry between British and American English “English accents are the sexiest.” “Americans have ruined the English language.” Such claims about the English language are often repeated but rarely examined. Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English. By examining the causes and symptoms of American Verbal Inferiority Complex and its flipside, British Verbal Superiority Complex, Murphy unravels the prejudices, stereotypes and insecurities that shape our attitudes to our own language. With great humo(u)r and new insights, Lynne Murphy looks at the social, political and linguistic forces that have driven American and British English in different directions: how Americans got from centre to center, why British accents are growing away from American ones, and what different things we mean when we say estate, frown, or middle class. Is anyone winning this war of the words? Will Yanks and Brits ever really understand each other?

The Thesaurus of Slang
The Thesaurus of Slang

Author: Esther Lewin

Publisher: Checkmark Books

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 9780816036615

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Includes jargon, sports slang, and ethnic and regional expressions

Watching the English
Watching the English

Author: Kate Fox

Publisher: Nicholas Brealey

Published: 2014-07-08

Total Pages: 455

ISBN-13: 1857889177

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Updated, with new research and over 100 revisions Ten years later, they're still talking about the weather! Kate Fox, the social anthropologist who put the quirks and hidden conditions of the English under a microscope, is back with more biting insights about the nature of Englishness. This updated and revised edition of Watching the English - which over the last decade has become the unofficial guidebook to the English national character - features new and fresh insights on the unwritten rules and foibles of "squaddies," bikers, horse-riders, and more. Fox revisits a strange and fascinating culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and bizarre codes of behavior. She demystifies the peculiar cultural rules that baffle us: the rules of weather-speak. The ironic-gnome rule. The reflex apology rule. The paranoid pantomime rule. Class anxiety tests. The roots of English self-mockery and many more. An international bestseller, Watching the English is a biting, affectionate, insightful and often hilarious look at the English and their society.

McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang 4E (PB)
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang 4E (PB)

Author: Richard A. Spears

Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional

Published: 2005-10-14

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 0071612076

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More bling for the buck! The #1 guide to American slang is now bigger, more up-to-date, and easier to use This new edition of McGraw-Hill’s Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions offers complete definitions of more than 12,000 slang and informal expressions from various sources, ranging from golden oldies such as . . . golden oldie, to recent coinages like shizzle (gangsta), jonx (Wall Street), and ping (the Internet). Each entry is followed by examples illustrating how an expression is used in everyday conversation and, where necessary, International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciations are given, as well as cautionary notes for crude, inflammatory, or taboo expressions. This edition also features a fascinating introduction on “What is Slang?,” a Thematic Index that cross-references expressions by standard terms--such as Angry, Drunk, Food, Good-bye, Mess-up, Money, and Stupidity--and a Hidden Word Index that lets you identify and locate even partially remembered expressions and phrases.

The Language Instinct
The Language Instinct

Author: Steven Pinker

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2010-12-14

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 0062032526

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"A brilliant, witty, and altogether satisfying book." — New York Times Book Review The classic work on the development of human language by the world’s leading expert on language and the mind In The Language Instinct, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America. This edition includes an update on advances in the science of language since The Language Instinct was first published.

An Anglo-Norman Reader
An Anglo-Norman Reader

Author: Jane Bliss

Publisher: Open Book Publishers

Published: 2018-02-08

Total Pages: 1044

ISBN-13: 1783743166

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This book is an anthology with a difference. It presents a distinctive variety of Anglo-Norman works, beginning in the twelfth century and ending in the nineteenth, covering a broad range of genres and writers, introduced in a lively and thought-provoking way. Facing-page translations, into accessible and engaging modern English, are provided throughout, bringing these texts to life for a contemporary audience. The collection offers a selection of fascinating passages, and whole texts, many of which are not anthologised or translated anywhere else. It explores little-known byways of Arthurian legend and stories of real-life crime and punishment; women’s voices tell history, write letters, berate pagans; advice is offered on how to win friends and influence people, how to cure people’s ailments and how to keep clear of the law; and stories from the Bible are retold with commentary, together with guidance on prayer and confession. Each text is introduced and elucidated with notes and full references, and the material is divided into three main sections: Story (a variety of narrative forms), Miscellany (including letters, law and medicine, and other non-fiction), and Religious (saints' lives, sermons, Bible commentary, and prayers). Passages in one genre have been chosen so as to reflect themes or stories that appear in another, so that the book can be enjoyed as a collection or used as a resource to dip into for selected texts. This anthology is essential reading for students and scholars of Anglo-Norman and medieval literature and culture. Wide-ranging and fully referenced, it can be used as a springboard for further study or relished in its own right by readers interested to discover Anglo-Norman literature that was written to amuse, instruct, entertain, or admonish medieval audiences.

With Speed and Violence
With Speed and Violence

Author: Fred Pearce

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2007-03-15

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0807085855

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Nature is fragile, environmentalists often tell us. But the lesson of this book is that it is not so. The truth is far more worrying. Nature is strong and packs a serious counterpunch . . . Global warming will very probably unleash unstoppable planetary forces. And they will not be gradual. The history of our planet's climate shows that it does not do gradual change. Under pressure, whether from sunspots or orbital wobbles or the depredations of humans, it lurches-virtually overnight. —from the Introduction Fred Pearce has been writing about climate change for eighteen years, and the more he learns, the worse things look. Where once scientists were concerned about gradual climate change, now more and more of them fear we will soon be dealing with abrupt change resulting from triggering hidden tipping points. Even President Bush's top climate modeler, Jim Hansen, warned in 2005 that "we are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption." As Pearce began working on this book, normally cautious scientists beat a path to his door to tell him about their fears and their latest findings. With Speed and Violence tells the stories of these scientists and their work-from the implications of melting permafrost in Siberia and the huge river systems of meltwater beneath the icecaps of Greenland and Antarctica to the effects of the "ocean conveyor" and a rare molecule that runs virtually the entire cleanup system for the planet. Above all, the scientists told him what they're now learning about the speed and violence of past natural climate change-and what it portends for our future. With Speed and Violence is the most up-to-date and readable book yet about the growing evidence for global warming and the large climatic effects it may unleash.

High & Low
High & Low

Author: Kirk Varnedoe

Publisher: ABRAMS

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13:

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Readins in high & low