Download or read book The Story of Be written by David Crystal and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-28 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book To Be Or Not to Be Innit written by Martin Baum and published by Bright Pen. This book was released on 2008 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Oi Mate Gimme Some More written by Martin Baum and published by Authors Online Limited. This book was released on 2010-06 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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."
Download or read book The Stories of English written by David Crystal and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2005-09-06 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking history of worldwide English in all its dialects, differences, and linguistic delights: “Informative . . . distinctive . . . a spirited celebration.” —The Guardian In this “well-informed and appealing” work (Publishers Weekly), David Crystal puts aside the usual focus on “standard” English, and instead provides a startlingly original view of where the richness, creativity, and diversity of the language truly lies—in the accents and dialects of nonstandard English users all over the world. Whatever their regional, social, or ethnic background, each group has a story worth telling, whether it is in Scotland or Somerset, South Africa or Singapore. He reminds us that for several hundred wonderful years, there was no such thing as “incorrect” English—and traces the evolution of the language from a few thousand Anglo-Saxons to the 1.5 billion people who speak it today. Moving from Beowulf to Chaucer to Shakespeare to Dickens and the present day, Crystal puts regional speech and writing at center stage, giving a sense of the social realities behind the development of English. This significant shift in perspective enables us to understand for the first time the importance of everyday, previously marginalized, voices in our language—and provides an argument too for the way English should be taught in the future. “A work of impeccable scholarship [that] could easily serve as a standard textbook for students of linguistics, but Mr. Crystal, reaching out to a more general audience, recognizes that even the most avid reader might flinch at the sections on Old Norse grammatical influence. Cleverly, he has sprinkled the book with little digressions, set apart in boxes, that address historical mysteries, strange loanwords, interesting etymologies and the like.” —The New York Times “Learned and often provocative . . . demonstrates repeatedly that common conceptions about language are often historically inaccurate—split infinitives bothered no one until recently (likewise sentence-ending prepositions).” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Simply the best introductory history of the English language family that we have. The plan of the book is ingenious, the writing lively, the exposition clear, and the scholarly standard uncompromisingly high.” —J.M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Download or read book Londonstani written by Gautam Malkani and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-08-28 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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."
Download or read book The Structure of Discourse Pragmatic Variation written by Heike Pichler and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2013-04-08 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Obsessive Intrusive Magical Thinking written by Marianne Eloise and published by Icon Books. This book was released on 2022-04-07 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: '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.
Download or read book Fowler s Dictionary of Modern English Usage written by Henry Watson Fowler and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide to the English language provides detailed and expert information on grammar, style, spelling, vocabulary, and punctuation with clear explanations and example sentences.
Download or read book Q A Criminal Law 2009 2010 written by Norman Baird and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Routledge-Cavendish Q&As – your path to exam success! Has the thought of facing your law exams left you feeling completely overwhelmed? Are you staring at the mountain of revision in front of you and wondering where to start? Routledge-Cavendish Q&As will help guide you through the revision maze, providing essential exam practice and helping you polish your essay-writing technique. Each Routledge-Cavendish Q&A contains 50 essay and problem-based questions on topics commonly found on exam papers, complete with answer plans and fully worked model answers. The titles are written by lecturers who are also examiners, so you can recognise exactly what examiners are looking for in an answer. Key cases and legislation are highlighted within the text for ease of reference Boxed answer plans after each question outline the major points you should be aiming to convey within your answer The books in this series are supported by a companion web offering you bonus q&as; advice on preparing for your exams; revision checklists; discussion forums and more. But don’t just take our word for it! "The book was an answer to my prayers... I’ve been begging tutors to give us ready-made answers so we get a structure as to what we should be including and revising and the Q&As do exactly that!" Azmina Thanda, 2nd year LLB "The Routledge-Cavendish Q&As are very well designed and helpful, giving a good indication of what comes up in exams." Deaglan McArdle, 3rd year LLB
Download or read book Doctor Whom written by Adam Roberts and published by Gollancz. This book was released on 2008-12-12 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Doctor Whom, the grammatically correct TimeLord (or should that be Time Lord? Or is it Timelord?) has come to save our universe from the terror's of sloppy syntax and bad grammar. With his intrepid assistant Lynne: hes here to correct greengrocers sign's, popular fiction and government memos (memoes?) before inaccurate and lazy communication rips apart the very fabric of the space time continuum. Is it any wonder that the rise of global warming has coincided with the decline in the teaching of Latin in our schools? I do'nt think so. Will the Doctor save us all? or will his evil nemisises (nemisiss? nemisi?) The Dalek's triumph and rule over a universe where no-one has any clear idea of the correct usage of semi-colons?
Download or read book London Fields written by Martin Amis and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-08-24 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A blackly comic late 20th-century murder mystery set against the looming end of the millennium, in which a woman tries to orchestrate her own extinction—from "one of the most gifted novelists of his generation" (TIME). “Lyrical and obscene, colloquial and rhapsodic." —The New York Times First published in 1989, London Fields is set ten years into a dark future, against a backdrop of environmental and social decay and the looming threat of global cataclysm. As the dreaded Y2K approaches, Nicola Six, a “black hole” of sex and self-loathing, has chosen her thirty-fifth birthday, November 5, 1999, as the date of her own murder. Whom to manipulate into killing her is the question; her choice wavers between violent lowlife Keith Talent, who is obsessed with winning a darts tournament, and a dimly romantic banker named Guy Clinch. When Samson Young—a writer suffering from a long bout of writer’s block—stumbles upon these three, he believes he has found a story that will write itself. A highly unusual mystery with an unexpected twist at the end, London Fields is also a corrosively funny narrative of pyrotechnic complexity and scalding moral vision.
Download or read book Navigating English Grammar written by Anne Lobeck and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-07-09 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow A D 1573 17 A D 1573 1642 written by Glasgow (Scotland) and published by . This book was released on 1876 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book World Englishes Volumes I III Set written by Tometro Hopkins and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 864 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World Englishes is a twelve-volume series, presenting a comprehensive, detailed survey of English as it is spoken all over the world. The volumes are organised into four groups, covering Britain, Europe, America, Africa and Asia, and celebrate English in all its diversity. The chapters contain maps, facts and figures, and a detailed description about English as it is spoken in each region and are an invaluable library resource for undergraduates, postgraduates and academics interested in the diversity of the English language.
Download or read book Understanding Syntax written by Maggie Tallerman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-13 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assuming no prior knowledge, Understanding Syntax illustrates the major concepts, categories and terminology associated with the study of cross-linguistic syntax. A theory-neutral and descriptive viewpoint is taken throughout. Starting with an overview of what syntax is, the book moves on to an explanation of word classes (such as noun, verb, adjective) and then to a discussion of sentence structure in the world’s languages. Grammatical constructions and relationships between words in a clause are explained and thoroughly illustrated, including grammatical relations such as subject and object; function-changing processes such as the passive and antipassive; case and agreement processes, including both ergative and accusative alignments; verb serialization; head-marking and dependent-marking grammars; configurational and non-configurational languages; questions and relative clauses. The final chapter explains and illustrates the principles involved in writing a brief syntactic sketch of a language, enabling the reader to construct a grammatical sketch of a language known to them. Data from approximately 100 languages appears in the text, with languages representing widely differing geographical areas and distinct language families. The book will be essential for courses in cross-linguistic syntax, language typology, and linguistic fieldwork, as well as for basic syntactic description.
Download or read book Television Ethnicity and Cultural Change written by Marie Gillespie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-04 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For 'ethnic minorities' in Britain, broadcast TV provides powerful representations of national and 'western' culture. In Southall - which has the largest population of 'South Asians' outside the Indian sub-continent - the VCR furnishes Hindi films, 'sacred soaps' such as the Mahabharata, and family videos of rites of passage, as well as mainstream American films. Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change examines how TV and video are being used to recreate cultural traditions within the 'South Asian' diaspora, and how they are also catalysing cultural change in this local community. Marie Gillespie explores how young people negotiate between the parental and peer, local and global, national and international contexts and culturess which traverse their lives. Articulating their own preoccupations with television narratives, they both reaffirm and challenge parental traditions, formulating their own aspirations towards cultural change. Marie Gillespie's in-depth study offers an invaluable survey of how cultures are shaped and changed through people's recreative reception of the media.
Download or read book English Grammar written by Angela Downing and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2006 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting the linguistic basis for courses and projects on translation, contrastive linguistics, stylistics, reading and discourse studies, this book illustrates grammatical usage through authentic texts from a range of sources, both spoken and written. This new edition has been thoroughly rewritten and redesigned to include many new texts and examples of language in use. Key features include: chapters divided into modules of class-length materials; a wide variety of authentic texts and transcriptions to illustrate points of grammar and to contextualise structure; clear chapter and module summaries enabling efficient class preparation and student revision; exercises and topics for individual study; answer key for analytical exercises; comprehensive index; select biography; suggestions for further reading; and a companion website. This up-to-date descriptive grammar is a complete course for first degree and postgraduate students of English, and is particularly suited for those whose native language is not English.
