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"Bill Bryson turns away from the highways and byways of middle America, so hilariously depicted in his bestselling The Lost Continent, for a fast, exhilarating ride along the Route 66 of American language and popular culture. In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land - explaining how a dusty desert hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans...
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This is an enlightening tour of English spelling that untangles 'stationery' from 'stationary' - and explains why the 'i before e except after c' rule is so misleading. Why is there an 'h' in ghost? William Caxton, inventor of the printing press and his Flemish employees are to blame: without a dictionary or style guide to hand in fifteenth century Bruges, the typesetters simply spelled it the way it sounded to the foreign ears, and it stuck. Seventy-five...
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This early work Otto Jespersen was originally published in 1905 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Growth and Structure of the English Language' is a scholarly linguistic study. Otto Jespersen was born in Randers, Denmark on 16th July 1869. He worked as an academic at Copenhagen University and rose to the position of professor of English, a post he held from 1893 to 1925. Jespersen made a considerable contribution...
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English
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Décharné traces the colorful history of slang, from Elizabethan highwaymen to the rap and hip-hop of today. He shows how meanings change over years; introduces us to flying aces, pickpockets, and carnival geeks who have left their impression on our language; and shows how slang leaks into the mainstream to infuse language with vitality.
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English
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This extensive reference volume presents the etymological history of thousands of English words.
The story of how words come to be is the story of how humans think, and how we fashion our civilizations. Words can be the product of long and intertwining histories, migrations from other languages, or new coinages of science or slang. This diversity of origins is part of what gives the English language its beauty and power.
In Dictionary of Word Origins,...
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English
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You may be what you eat, but you're also what you speak, and English food words tell a remarkable story about the evolution of our language and culinary history, revealing a vital collision of cultures alive and well from the time Caesar first arrived on British shores to the present day.
Words to Eat By explores the remarkable stories behind five of our most basic food words, words which reveal fascinating aspects of the evolution of the English...
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English
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For years, Richard Lederer has enthralled fans of the English language with his keen insights, commonsense advice, and witty presentation. Now Lederer has teamed up with Richard Dowis to take readers on another journey through the world's most wonderful, albeit perplexing, language. How many times have we all heard the word viable used in company meetings? Lederer and Dowis show us how "viable," somewhere along the line, was extracted from medical...
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English
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From Geronimo! to gesundheit to haminahamina to holy mackerel, and from abracadabra to zoinks, Mark Dunn and Sergio Aragonés show you interjections like you've never seen them before.
Often thought of as unnecessary verbal fringe or simply linguistic decoration, interjections (ahem, howdy, mamma mia, pshaw, tally-ho, whoop-de-do) may well be the most overlooked part of speech in the English language. ZOUNDS! A Browser's Dictionary of Interjections...
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By the early eighteenth century, France and Italy had impressive lexicons, but there was no authoritative dictionary of English. Sensing the deficit, and impelled by a mixture of national pride and commercial expedience, the prodigious polymath Samuel Johnson embraced the task, turning over the garret of his London home to the creation of his own giant dictionary.
Johnson imagined that he could complete the job in three years. But, the complexity...
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English
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A history of English from the age of Beowulf to the rap of Eminem.
Many have written about the evolution of grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, but only Seth Lerer situates these developments within the larger history of English, America, and literature. This edition features a new chapter on the influence of biblical translation and an epilogue on the relationship of English speech to writing.
A unique blend of historical and personal narrative....
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"Blimey, I'm Knackered is the perfect companion for anyone desiring to bridge the gap between US and UK English or who simply enjoys the evolution of language and culture. American scholar and longtime UK resident Marshall Hall has organized his insightful definitions and explanations of British idioms, colloquialisms, abbreviations, acronyms, and slang into nineteen entertaining and revealing chapters covering everything from transportation and food...
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Welcome to Susanna Janssen's wondrous world of words. In Wordstruck! you'll find a wealth of entertaining reflections on language full of humor, imagination, and insight. Anything goes, from the genius of Shakespeare to the unintentional hilarity of linguistic faux pas; from musings on the bilingual brain to the poignant humor of her "Life in Words"; from translations gone riotously bad to English learners tortured by our mother tongue's inconstant...
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From the homegrown "boodle" of the 19th century to current "misunderstandistan" in the Middle East, America's foremost expert on slang reveals military lingo at its most colorful, innovative, brutal, and ironic. Author Paul Dickson introduces some of the "new words and phrases born of conflict, boredom, good humor, bad food, new technology, and the pure horror of war." This newly updated reference extends to the post-9/11 world and the American military...
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English
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"This is a study of French words and phrases which, untranslated, have entered the English lexicon. Historians calculate that English, since 1500, has borrowed more words from French than from any other modern foreign language. While it has naturalized many of these words, some have visibly retained their foreign roots, leading varied lives in the English-speaking world while eluding translation and resisting integration. Carrying traces of their...
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