Download or read book The Disappearing Dictionary written by David Crystal and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-05-21 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wherever you go in the English-speaking world, there are linguistic riches from times past awaiting rediscovery. All you have to do is choose a location, find some old documents, and dig a little. In The Disappearing Dictionary, linguistics expert Professor David Crystal collects together delightful dialect words that either provide an insight into an older way of life, or simply have an irresistible phonetic appeal. Like a mirror image of The Meaning of Liff that just happens to be true, The Disappearing Dictionary unearths some lovely old gems of the English language, dusts them down and makes them live again for a new generation. dabberlick [noun, Scotland] A mildly insulting way of talking about someone who is tall and skinny. 'Where's that dabberlick of a child?' fubsy [adjective, Lancashire] Plump, in a nice sort of way. squinch [noun, Devon] A narrow crack in a wall or a space between floorboards. 'I lost sixpence through a squinch in the floor'.
Download or read book The Devil s Dictionary written by Steven Kotler and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Steven Kotler's follow up to Last Tango in Cyberspace, a near-future thriller about the evolution of empathy in the tradition of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. Hard to say exactly when the human species fractured. Harder to say when this new talent arrived. But Lion Zorn, protagonist of Last Tango in Cyberspace, is the first of his kind—an empathy tracker, an emotional forecaster, with a felt sense for how culture evolves and the future arrives. It’s also a useful skill in today’s competitive business market. In The Devil’s Dictionary, when a routine em-tracking job goes sideways and em-trackers themselves start disappearing, Lion finds himself not knowing who to trust in a life and death race to uncover the truth. And when the trail leads to the world’s first mega-linkage, a continent-wide national park advertised as the best way to stave off environmental collapse, and exotic animals unlike any on Earth start showing up—Lion’s quest for truth becomes a fight for the survival of the species. Packed with intrigue and heart-pounding action, marked by unforgettable characters and vivid storytelling, filled with science-based brilliance and cult comic touches, The Devil’s Dictionary is Steven Kotler at his thrilling science fiction best.
Download or read book Lempri re s Dictionary written by Lawrence Norfolk and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 861 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Somerset Maugham Prize–winning, international bestselling debut novel: “a dazzling linguistic and formal achievement” set in 18th century London (Salman Rushdie). In eighteenth-century London, John Lempriere works feverishly on a celebrated dictionary of classical mythology that bears his name. But when he discovers a conspiracy against his family dating back 150 years, he embarks on a personal mission that will pit him against enemies he never new he had, allies he never thought he would ever want, and a destiny he never imagined . . . Told with the narrative drive of a political thriller and a Dickensian panorama of place and time, this “superbly entertaining” tale encompasses multinational conspiracies and a motley cast of scholars, eccentrics, prostitutes, assassins, drunken aristocrats, and octogenarian pirates—all brilliantly depicted across three continents and the world of classical mythology (The Washington Post).
Download or read book The Word Detective written by John Simpson and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can you drink a glass of balderdash? What do you call the part of a dog's back it can't scratch? And if, serendipitously, you find yourself in Serendip, then where exactly are you? The answers to all of these questions -- and a great many more -- can be found in the pages of the Oxford English Dictionary, the definitive record of the English language. And there is no better guide to the dictionary's many wonderments than the former chief editor of the OED, John Simpson. Simpson spent almost four decades of his life immersed in the intricacies of our language, and guides us through its history with charmingly laconic wit. In The Word Detective, an intensely personal memoir and a joyful celebration of English, he weaves a story of how words come into being (and sometimes disappear), how culture shapes the language we use, and how technology has transformed not only the way we speak and write but also how words are made. Throughout, he enlivens his narrative with lively excavations and investigations of individual words -- from deadline to online and back to 101 (yes, it's a word) -- all the while reminding us that the seemingly mundane words (can you name the four different meanings of ma?) are often the most interesting ones. But Simpson also reminds us of the limitations of language: spending his days in the OED's house of words, his family at home is forced to confront the challenges of wordlessness. A brilliant and deeply humane expedition through the world of words, The Word Detective will delight and inspire any lover of language.
Download or read book Dictionary of Gestures written by Francois Caradec and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated guide to more than 850 gestures and their meanings around the world, from a nod of the head to a click of the heels. Gestures convey meaning with a flourish. A vigorous nod of the head, a bold jut of the chin, an enthusiastic thumbs-up: all speak louder than words. Yet the same gesture may have different meanings in different parts of the world. What Americans understand as the “A-OK gesture,” for example, is an obscene insult in the Arab world. This volume is the reference book we didn't know we needed—an illustrated dictionary of 850 gestures and their meanings around the world. It catalogs voluntary gestures made to communicate openly—as distinct from sign language, dance moves, involuntary “tells,” or secret handshakes—and explains what the gesture conveys in a variety of locations. It is organized by body part, from top to bottom, from head (nodding, shaking, turning) to foot (scraping, kicking, playing footsie). We learn that “to oscillate the head while gently throwing it back” communicates approval in some countries even though it resembles the headshake of disapproval used in other countries; that “to tap a slightly inflated cheek” constitutes an erotic invitation when accompanied by a wink; that the middle finger pointed in the air signifies approval in South America. We may already know that it is a grave insult in the Middle East and Asia to display the sole of one's shoe, but perhaps not that motorcyclists sometimes greet each other by raising a foot. Illustrated with clever line drawings and documented with quotations from literature (the author, François Caradec, was a distinguished and prolific historian of literature, culture, and humorous oddities, as well as a novelist and poet), this dictionary offers readers unique lessons in polylingual meaning.
Download or read book A Grammar and Dictionary of Tayap written by Don Kulick and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tayap is a small, previously undocumented Papuan language, spoken in a single village called Gapun, in the lower Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea. The language is an isolate, unrelated to any other in the area. Furthermore, Tayap is dying. Fewer than fifty speakers actively command it today. Based on linguistic anthropological work conducted over the course of thirty years, this book describes the grammar of the language, detailing its phonology, morphology and syntax. It devotes particular attention to verbs, which are the most elaborated area of the grammar, and which are complex, fusional and massively suppletive.The book also provides a full Tayap-English-Tok Pisin dictionary. A particularly innovative contribution is the detailed discussions of how Tayap’'s grammar is dissolving in the language of young speakers. The book exemplifies how the complex structures in fluent speakers’ Tayap are reduced or reanalyzed by younger speakers. This grammar and dictionary should therefore be a valuable resource for anyone interested in the mechanics of how languages disappear. The fact that it is the sole documentation of this unique Papuan language should also make it of interest to areal specialists and language typologists.
Download or read book The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary written by Peter Gilliver and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells the history of the Oxford English Dictionary from its beginnings in the middle of the nineteenth century to the present. The author, uniquely among historians of the OED, is also a practising lexicographer with nearly thirty years' experience of working on the Dictionary. He has drawn on a wide range of sources-including previously unexamined archival material and eyewitness testimony-to create a detailed history of the project. The book explores the cultural background from which the idea of a comprehensive historical dictionary of English emerged, the lengthy struggles to bring this concept to fruition, and the development of the book from the appearance of the first printed fascicle in 1884 to the launching of the Dictionary as an online database in 2000 and beyond. It also examines the evolution of the lexicographers' working methods, and provides much information about the people-many of them remarkable individuals-who have contributed to the project over the last century and a half.
Download or read book The Accidental Dictionary written by Paul Anthony Jones and published by . This book was released on 2019-06-13 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brimming with hidden histories and tantalising twists, The Accidental Dictionary tells the extraordinary stories behind ordinary words. Our everyday language is full of surprises; its origins are stranger than you might think. Any word might be knocked and buffeted, subjected to twists and turns, expansions and contractions, happy and unhappy accidents. There are intriguing tales behind even the most familiar terms, and they can say as much about the present as they do the past. Busking, for instance, originally meant piracy. Grin meant to snarl. A bimbo was a man, nice meant ignorant, glamour was magic and a cupboard was a table... Focusing on 100 surprising threads in the evolution of English, The Accidental Dictionary reveals the etymological origins and quirky developments that have led to the meanings we take for granted today. It is a weird and wonderful journey into words. "A real delight ... hidden gems nestle on every page" -- JaffaReadsToo "The Accidental Dictionary is certainly worth adding [to a bookshelf]... I knew very few of these, which is a good thing, and now I know more, which is a better one" -- Marcus Berkmann, Spectator Christmas books 2016
Download or read book The American Sandbox Dictionary of Children s Mispronounced English written by Alvin Zamudio and published by Reedy Press LLC. This book was released on 2010-09 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: smoke-in-a-troll: A handheld device that operates the functions of an electronic device from a distance, which also has a strange tendency to disappear when used by children. Mom where's the smokinatroll? far-mer-john: Also called farmerjohn cheese. A hard, dry Italian skim milk cheese usually grated and served atop foods such as pizza or salad. I want more farmerjohn on my pizza, please! man-y-nems: A world-famous confection of milk chocolate with a hard candy shell that may not melt in your hands but will certainly have disastrous results if left in children's pockets for long periods of time. Mommy, can I have some more manynems? Mine are all melted! The American Sandbox Dictionary of Children's Mispronounced English is a compilation of the hilarious words children stumble over on a daily basis. Alvin Zamudio has collected the best entries from thousands of submissions from his popular website americansandbox.com. Parents from across the country have shared their kids' mispronunciations, you'll find many of them in this adorable, or adorabubble, volume.
Download or read book A dictionary and grammatical sketch of Ruruuli Lunyala written by Saudah Namyalo and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on with total page 796 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a dictionary and grammar sketch of Ruruuli-Lunyala, a Great Lakes Bantu language spoken by over 200,000 people in central Uganda. The dictionary part includes about 10,000 entries. Each lexical entry provides translations into English, example sentences, and basic grammatical information. The dictionary part is supplemented with an outline of the Ruruuli-Lunyala grammar, which treats most of the phonological and morpho-syntactic topics. This book is a result of a joined effort of a large team of linguists and many speakers of Ruruuli-Lunyala and is intended as a resource for linguists and Ruruuli-Lunyala speakers, learners, and educators.
Download or read book The Dictionary of Lost Words written by Pip Williams and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “Delightful . . . [a] captivating and slyly subversive fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded.”—The New York Times Book Review “A marvelous fiction about the power of language to elevate or repress.”—Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of People of the Book Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men. As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages. Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world. WINNER OF THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARD
Download or read book Ways to Disappear written by Idra Novey and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette, an inventive, brilliant debut novel about the disappearance of a famous Brazilian novelist and the young translator who turns her life upside down to follow her author's trail. Beatriz Yagoda was once one of Brazil's most celebrated authors. At the age of sixty, she is mostly forgotten-until one summer afternoon when she enters a park in Rio de Janeiro, climbs into an almond tree, and disappears. When her devoted translator Emma hears the news in wintry Pittsburgh, she flies to the sticky heat of Rio. There she joins the author's son and daughter to solve the mystery of Yagoda's disappearance and satisfy the demands of the colorful characters left in her wake, including a loan shark with a debt to collect and the washed-up editor who launched Yagoda's career. What they discover is how much of her they never knew. Exquisitely imagined and as profound as it is suspenseful, Ways to Disappear is at once a thrilling story of intrigue and a radiant novel of self-reckoning. "An elegant page-turner....Charges forward with the momentum of a bullet."-New York Times Book Review
Download or read book The Liverpool English Dictionary written by Tony Crowley and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-30 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From ‘Abbadabba’ to ‘Z-Cars’, this remarkable dictionary records the rich vocabulary that has evolved over the past century and a half, as part of the complex, stratified, multi-faceted and changing culture of Liverpool. The roots/routes, meanings and histories of the words of Liverpool are presented in a concise, clear and accessible format.
Download or read book Safire s Political Dictionary written by William Safire and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-03-31 with total page 887 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it comes to the vagaries of language in American politics, its uses and abuses, its absurdities and ever-shifting nuances, its power to confound, obscure, and occasionally to inspire, William Safire is the language maven we most readily turn to for clarity, guidance, and penetrating, sometimes lacerating, wit. Safire's Political Dictionary is a stem-to-stern updating and expansion of the Language of Politics, which was first published in 1968 and last revised in 1993, long before such terms as Hanging Chads, 9/11 and the War on Terror became part of our everyday vocabulary. Nearly every entry in that renowned work has been revised and updated and scores of completely new entries have been added to produce an indispensable guide to the political language being used and abused in America today. Safire's definitions--discursive, historically aware, and often anecdotal--bring a savvy perspective to our colorful political lingo. Indeed, a Safire definition often reads like a mini-essay in political history, and readers will come away not only with a fuller understanding of particular words but also a richer knowledge of how politics works, and fails to work, in America. From Axis of Evil, Blame Game, Bridge to Nowhere, Triangulation, and Compassionate Conservatism to Islamofascism, Netroots, Earmark, Wingnuts and Moonbats, Slam Dunk, Doughnut Hole, and many others, this language maven explains the origin of each term, how and by whom and for what purposes it has been used or twisted, as well as its perceived and real significance. For anyone who wants to cut through the verbal haze that surrounds so much of American political discourse, Safire's Political Dictionary offers a work of scholarship, wit, insiderhood and resolute bipartisanship.
Download or read book A Scots Dictionary of Nature written by Amanda Thomson and published by Saraband. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scotland is a nation of dramatic weather and breathtaking landscapes – of nature resplendent. And, over the centuries, the people who have lived, explored and thrived in this country have developed a rich language to describe their surroundings: a uniquely Scottish lexicon shaped by the very environment itself. A Scots Dictionary of Nature brings together – for the first time – the deeply expressive vocabulary customarily used to describe land, wood, weather, birds, water and walking in Scotland. Artist Amanda Thomson collates and celebrates these traditional Scots words, which reveal ways of seeing and being in the world that are in danger of disappearing forever. What emerges is a vivid evocation of the nature and people of Scotland, past and present; of lives lived between the mountains and the sky.
Download or read book The Concise Dictionary of Dress written by Judith Clark and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this deeply idiosyncratic collaboration between a psychoanalyst and a costume curator, Adam Phillips re-describes dress in terms of anxiety, wish and desire, while Judith Clark's installations raise issues of equivalence with Phillips' definitions and bring garments and other items from the Victoria and Albert Museum's archive to life in unexpected ways. Published in parallel with an Artangel commission at Blythe House, location of the V&A's vast reserve collections, and designed by Studio Frith, The Concise Dictionary of Dress examines the nature of dictionaries, archives and dress curation and adds a stunning visual essay recording two overnight tours through Blythe House by renowned photographer Norbert Schoerner. Phillips' definitions for words commonly associated with fashion and appearance - such as armoured, conformist, essential, provocative - were paired with eleven stations created by Clark on a walk through this vast building, from its rooftop to an underground coal bunker. Here in print, extending beyond the works at Blythe House, Phillips adds more words, more definitions and an overarching essay asking broader questions about what dictionaries are, how we use them and why they matter. Judith Clark herself also presents a written analysis of the Dictionary in response to questions posed anonymously by authorities in fields as varied as cultural theory, fashion history, arts curation and architecture, as well as a comprehensive illustrated catalogue of references used in creating the installations.
Download or read book The Disappearing Spoon written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table. Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters? The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. The Disappearing Spoon masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery -- from the Big Bang through the end of time. Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.
