Download or read book A Million Words And Counting How Global English Is Rewriting The World written by Paul J.J. Payack and published by Kensington Publishing Corp.. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Babel to Babble . . . Everyone is Speaking English In 2007, the English language passed the million-word mark. That shouldn't come as a surprise since over a billion Earthlings speak English (no one knows about other planets, but they probably speak it, too). That makes for a lot of word-coiners (neologists) out there. And where are all these new words coming from? Hollywood? Technology? The Internet? Corporate boardrooms? Youthspeak? How do world events--from tsunamis and hurricanes to political doublespeak and presidential linguistic bumbling--influence the words we use on a daily basis? What do e-mails, text messages, and emoticons contribute to the language? Let WordMan Paul J.J. Payack take you on a global tour of English-speaking worlds--virtual and otherwise: • From India, Singapore, and China, to Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. • From film, television, fashion, music, politics, sports, games, business, technology and science • From TV junkies, fashionistas and sports fans, to amateur historians and linguists • And from every other source that contributes to the global tapestry of English Get ready for a whirlwind tour of our increasingly global culture and how it becomes that way. A Million Words? Fundoo! Podcast, Chinglish, truthiness, crunk. Just a year or two ago, these words were gibberish to most English speakers. Today they pop up in everyday conversation worldwide, just four of the ten thousand new words added to the English language every year. Spurred by the universality of the Internet--where it is the de facto lingua franca--and the global reach of its media, English is growing at a rate unprecedented in its 1500-year history. Indeed, in the spring of 2007, the English word count surpassed a million--over ten times the number available in French. At the crest of this linguistic tsunami surfs Paul J.J. Payack, aka the WordMan. As president of the Global Language Monitor, he has tracked the latest developments--the fascinating hybrids, the bizarre etymologies, the lasting malapropisms--in the language shared by two billion of the Earth's citizens. Aided by a worldwide network of similarly obsessed "language mavens" and armed with his own powerful word-counting algorithm, Payack ensures that no new English word falls from the tongue or marks the page without being counted toward the Million Word March. A Million Words and Counting is a celebration of the vast variety and ever-evolving expressiveness of humanity's most universal language. Fun and informative, this guide is a joyful exploration of English as it spreads across the globe, as it is spoken today, and as it expands into the future. Each entertaining chapter of this ambitious linguistic survey examines another source of new English, including Hollywood, youth culture, other languages, corporate boardrooms, and tongue-tied presidents. An engaging compendium of English-language facts and factoids, this is a trivia lover's goldmine and a logophile's playground.

Download or read book A Million Words and Counting written by Paul J. J. Payack and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English is growing at a rate unprecedented in its 1500-year history. Now, for the first time ever, a compendium of English language miscellany that identifies the most fascinating recent developments in the language, from the realms of entertainment, technology and business to the mixing of English with foreign languages. As president of the Global Language Monitor, author Paul Payack knows his stuff and includes fun facts about word origins and usage all over the globe.

Download or read book Thirty Million Words written by Dana Suskind and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The founder and director of the Thirty Million Words Initiative, Professor Dana Suskind, explains why the most important—and astoundingly simple—thing you can do for your child’s future success in life is to to talk to them. What nurtures the brain to optimum intelligence and stability? It is a secret hiding in plain sight: the most important thing we can do for our children is to have conversations with them. The way you talk with your growing child literally builds his or her brain. Parent talk can drastically improve school readiness and lifelong learning in everything from math to art. Indeed, parent–child talk is a fundamental, critical factor in building grit, self-control, leadership skills, and generosity. It is crucial to making the most in life of the luck you have with your genes. This landmark account of a new scientific perspective describes what works and what doesn't (baby talk is fine; relentless correction isn't). Discover how to create the best "language environments" for children by following the simple structure of the Three Ts: Tune In; Talk More; Take Turns. Dr. Suskind and her colleagues around the country have worked with thousands of families; now their insights and successful, measured approaches are available to all. This is the first book to reveal how and why the first step in nurturing successful lives is talking to children in ways that build their brains. Your family—and our nation—need to know. *Nominated for the Books for a Better Life Award*

Download or read book Making Numbers Count written by Chip Heath and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clear, practical, first-of-its-kind guide to communicating and understanding numbers and data—from bestselling business author Chip Heath. How much bigger is a billion than a million? Well, a million seconds is twelve days. A billion seconds is…thirty-two years. Understanding numbers is essential—but humans aren’t built to understand them. Until very recently, most languages had no words for numbers greater than five—anything from six to infinity was known as “lots.” While the numbers in our world have gotten increasingly complex, our brains are stuck in the past. How can we translate millions and billions and milliseconds and nanometers into things we can comprehend and use? Author Chip Heath has excelled at teaching others about making ideas stick and here, in Making Numbers Count, he outlines specific principles that reveal how to translate a number into our brain’s language. This book is filled with examples of extreme number makeovers, vivid before-and-after examples that take a dry number and present it in a way that people click in and say “Wow, now I get it!” You will learn principles such as: -SIMPLE PERSPECTIVE CUES: researchers at Microsoft found that adding one simple comparison sentence doubled how accurately users estimated statistics like population and area of countries. -VIVIDNESS: get perspective on the size of a nucleus by imagining a bee in a cathedral, or a pea in a racetrack, which are easier to envision than “1/100,000th of the size of an atom.” -CONVERT TO A PROCESS: capitalize on our intuitive sense of time (5 gigabytes of music storage turns into “2 months of commutes, without repeating a song”). -EMOTIONAL MEASURING STICKS: frame the number in a way that people already care about (“that medical protocol would save twice as many women as curing breast cancer”). Whether you’re interested in global problems like climate change, running a tech firm or a farm, or just explaining how many Cokes you’d have to drink if you burned calories like a hummingbird, this book will help math-lovers and math-haters alike translate the numbers that animate our world—allowing us to bring more data, more naturally, into decisions in our schools, our workplaces, and our society.

Download or read book Elmore Leonard s 10 Rules of Writing written by Elmore Leonard and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "These are the rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story."—Elmore Leonard For aspiring writers and lovers of the written word, this concise guide breaks down the writing process with simplicity and clarity. From adjectives and exclamation points to dialect and hoopetedoodle, Elmore Leonard explains what to avoid, what to aspire to, and what to do when it sounds like "writing" (rewrite). Beautifully designed, filled with free-flowing, elegant illustrations and specially priced, Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing is the perfect writer's—and reader's—gift.

Download or read book Numbers and the Making of Us written by Caleb Everett and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-13 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fascinating book.” —James Ryerson, New York Times Book Review A Smithsonian Best Science Book of the Year Winner of the PROSE Award for Best Book in Language & Linguistics Carved into our past and woven into our present, numbers shape our perceptions of the world far more than we think. In this sweeping account of how the invention of numbers sparked a revolution in human thought and culture, Caleb Everett draws on new discoveries in psychology, anthropology, and linguistics to reveal the many things made possible by numbers, from the concept of time to writing, agriculture, and commerce. Numbers are a tool, like the wheel, developed and refined over millennia. They allow us to grasp quantities precisely, but recent research confirms that they are not innate—and without numbers, we could not fully grasp quantities greater than three. Everett considers the number systems that have developed in different societies as he shares insights from his fascinating work with indigenous Amazonians. “This is bold, heady stuff... The breadth of research Everett covers is impressive, and allows him to develop a narrative that is both global and compelling... Numbers is eye-opening, even eye-popping.” —New Scientist “A powerful and convincing case for Everett’s main thesis: that numbers are neither natural nor innate to humans.” —Wall Street Journal

Download or read book Million Dollar Words written by Godin And Mandell and published by Running Press. This book was released on 1993-03-02 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Man on Mao s Right written by Ji Chaozhu and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008-07-15 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No other narrative from within the corridors of power has offered as frank and intimate an account of the making of the modern Chinese nation as Ji Chaozhu’s The Man on Mao’s Right. Having served Chairman Mao Zedong and the Communist leadership for two decades, and having become a key figure in China’s foreign policy, Ji now provides an honest, detailed account of the personalities and events that shaped today’s People’s Republic. The youngest son of a prosperous government official, nine-year-old Ji and his family fled Japanese invaders in the late 1930s, escaping to America. Warmly received by his new country, Ji returned its embrace as he came of age in New York’s East Village and then attended Harvard University. But in 1950, after years of enjoying a life of relative ease while his countrymen suffered through war and civil strife, Ji felt driven by patriotism to volunteer to serve China in its conflict with his adoptive country in the Korean War. Ji’s mastery of the English language and American culture launched his improbable career, eventually winning him the role of English interpreter for China’s two top leaders: Premier Zhou Enlai and Party Chairman Mao Zedong. With a unique blend of Chinese insight and American candor, Ji paints insightful portraits of the architects of modern China: the urbane, practical, and avuncular Zhou, the conscience of the People’s Republic; and the messianic, charismatic Mao, student of China’s ancient past–his country’s stern father figure. In Ji’s memoir, he is an eyewitness to modern Chinese history, including the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Nixon summit, and numerous momentous events in Tiananmen Square. As he becomes caught up in political squabbles among radical factions, Ji’s past and charges against him of “incorrect” thinking subject him to scrutiny and suspicion. He is repeatedly sent to a collective farm to be “reeducated” by the peasants. After the Mao years, Ji moves on to hold top diplomatic posts in the United States and the United Kingdom and then serves as under secretary-general of the United Nations. Today, he says, “The Chinese know America better than the Americans know China. The risk is that we misperceive each other.” This highly accessible insider’s chronicle of a struggling people within a developing powerhouse nation is also Ji Chaozhu’s dramatic personal story, certain to fascinate and enlighten Western readers. A riveting biography and unique historical record, The Man on Mao’s Right recounts the heartfelt struggle of a man who loved two powerful nations that were at odds with each other. Ji Chaozhu played an important role in paving the way for what is destined to be known as the Chinese Century. Praise for The Man on Mao’s Right "Brave, beautifully written testimony . A true "fly-on-the-wall" account of the momentous changes in Chinese society and international relations over the last century." --Kirkus Reviews “It is a relief to read an account by an urbane and often witty insider who neither idolizes nor demonizes China's top leaders . . . . Highly recommended." —Library Journal, starred review

Download or read book ABC and 1 2 3 A Sesame Street Treasury of Words and Numbers Sesame Street written by Various and published by Random House Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 1998-11-17 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Toddlers can have fun while learning their ABC's and 1, 2, 3's with their favorite Sesame Street characters and Muppet friends in this colorful hardcover. The ABC Book of Words helps kids master the alphabet and new vocabulary, while The Counting Book makes counting fun by drawing from Sesame Street favorites like "one broom swooshing" to "100 Twiddlebugs at the Twiddlebug Fair!" Together, these books make a perfect pair for any toddler!

Download or read book The Right Words at the Right Time written by Marlo Thomas and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2004-01-06 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For everyone who needs a hero or loves a good story, here is an inspiring collection of personal revelations from more than 100 remarkable men and women who share a moment when words changed their lives"--Jacket.

Download or read book The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation written by Lester Kaufman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-04-16 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling workbook and grammar guide, revised and updated! Hailed as one of the best books around for teaching grammar, The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation includes easy-to-understand rules, abundant examples, dozens of reproducible quizzes, and pre- and post-tests to help teach grammar to middle and high schoolers, college students, ESL students, homeschoolers, and more. This concise, entertaining workbook makes learning English grammar and usage simple and fun. This updated 12th edition reflects the latest updates to English usage and grammar, and includes answers to all reproducible quizzes to facilitate self-assessment and learning. Clear and concise, with easy-to-follow explanations, offering "just the facts" on English grammar, punctuation, and usage Fully updated to reflect the latest rules, along with even more quizzes and pre- and post-tests to help teach grammar Ideal for students from seventh grade through adulthood in the US and abroad For anyone who wants to understand the major rules and subtle guidelines of English grammar and usage, The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation offers comprehensive, straightforward instruction.

Download or read book A Million Random Words written by John Vorhaus and published by Bafflegab Books. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 2529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can you do with a million random words? Crikey, what can’t you do? Create “exquisite corpse” poetry. Seed your creativity by using some random number of random words as the basis for your next short story. Invent delightful party games. Tell fortunes. Give as a gift to your wise-ass Scrabble friends. Or just read aloud and laugh yourself stupid. The possibilities are endless (well, no, actually, they end at a million) when you buy and own your own copy of A Million Random Words. With this ebook on your smart phone or dumb phone or device, you’re never more than a tap away from an astounding new collection of uniquely assembled words and phrases. Can you say, “Waving plateglass forename salp, duckwalked supertonic guilty librettists?” You couldn’t before, but now you can! A Million Random Words was created using a proprietary algorithm and has been meticulously copy-edited and vetted by the finest linguistic scholars. Attractively priced at just $4.99 – less than $0.000005 per word – it offers a better cost-to-word than any book in the history of print, so order your copy today. The sooner you do, the sooner you can say, “Cathartic thrill columbic superwives pushrods” with the full courage of your conviction.

Download or read book Counting by 7s written by Holly Goldberg Sloan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-09-16 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller In the tradition of Out of My Mind, Wonder, and Mockingbird, this is an intensely moving middle grade novel about being an outsider, coping with loss, and discovering the true meaning of family. Willow Chance is a twelve-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by 7s. It has never been easy for her to connect with anyone other than her adoptive parents, but that hasn’t kept her from leading a quietly happy life . . . until now. Suddenly Willow’s world is tragically changed when her parents both die in a car crash, leaving her alone in a baffling world. The triumph of this book is that it is not a tragedy. This extraordinarily odd, but extraordinarily endearing, girl manages to push through her grief. Her journey to find a fascinatingly diverse and fully believable surrogate family is a joy and a revelation to read. * “Willow's story is one of renewal, and her journey of rebuilding the ties that unite people as a family will stay in readers' hearts long after the last page.”—School Library Journal starred review * “A graceful, meaningful tale featuring a cast of charming, well-rounded characters who learn sweet—but never cloying—lessons about resourcefulness, community, and true resilience in the face of loss.”—Booklist starred review * “What sets this novel apart from the average orphan-finds-a-home book is its lack of sentimentality, its truly multicultural cast (Willow describes herself as a “person of color”; Mai and Quang-ha are of mixed Vietnamese, African American, and Mexican ancestry), and its tone. . . . Poignant.”—The Horn Book starred review "In achingly beautiful prose, Holly Goldberg Sloan has written a delightful tale of transformation that’s a celebration of life in all its wondrous, hilarious and confounding glory. Counting by 7s is a triumph."—Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Download or read book Bringing Down the House written by Ben Mezrich and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-12-02 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 national bestseller, now a major motion picture, 21—the amazing inside story about a gambling ring of M.I.T. students who beat the system in Vegas—and lived to tell how. Robin Hood meets the Rat Pack when the best and the brightest of M.I.T.’s math students and engineers take up blackjack under the guidance of an eccentric mastermind. Their small blackjack club develops from an experiment in counting cards on M.I.T.’s campus into a ring of card savants with a system for playing large and winning big. In less than two years they take some of the world’s most sophisticated casinos for more than three million dollars. But their success also brings with it the formidable ire of casino owners and launches them into the seedy underworld of corporate Vegas with its private investigators and other violent heavies.

Download or read book 2k to 10k written by Rachel Aaron and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-08-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I loved this book! So helpful!" -- Courtney Milan, New York Times Best Selling author of The Governess Affair "Have you ever wanted to double your daily word counts? Do you feel like you're crawling through your story, struggling for each paragraph? Would you like to get more words every day without increasing the time you spend writing or sacrificing quality? It's not impossible, it's not even that hard. This is the story of how, with a few simple changes, I boosted my daily writing from 2000 words to over 10k a day, and how you can, too." Expanding on her highly successful process for doubling daily word counts, this book--a combination of reworked blog posts and new material--offers practical writing advice for anyone who's ever longed to increase their daily writing output. In addition to updated information for Rachel's popular 2k to 10k writing efficiency process, 5 step plotting method, and easy editing tips, this new book includes chapters on creating characters that write their own stories, story structure, and learning to love your daily writing. Full of easy to follow, practical advice from a commercial author who doesn't eat if she doesn't produce good books on a regular basis, 2k to 10k focuses not just on writing faster, but writing better, and having more fun while you do it. *New for Fall 2013! This Revised Edition includes updates and corrections for all chapters!*

Download or read book 8 Billion and Counting How Sex Death and Migration Shape Our World written by Jennifer D. Sciubba and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative description of the power of population change to create the conditions for societal transformation. As the world nears 8 billion people, the countries that have led the global order since World War II are becoming the most aged societies in human history. At the same time, the world’s poorest and least powerful countries are suffocating under an imbalance of population and resources. In 8 Billion and Counting, political demographer Jennifer D. Sciubba argues that the story of the twenty-first century is less a story about exponential population growth, as the previous century was, than it is a story about differential growth—marked by a stark divide between the world’s richest and poorest countries. Drawing from decades of research, policy experience, and teaching, Sciubba employs stories and statistics to explain how demographic trends, like age structure and ethnic composition, are crucial signposts for future violence and peace, repression and democracy, poverty and prosperity. Although we have a diverse global population, demographic trends often follow predictable patterns that can help professionals across the corporate, nonprofit, government, and military sectors understand the global strategic environment. Through the lenses of national security, global health, and economics, Sciubba demonstrates the pitfalls of taking population numbers at face value and extrapolating from there. Instead, she argues, we must look at the forces in a society that amplify demographic trends and the forces that dilute them, particularly political institutions, or the rules of the game. She shows that the most important skills in demographic analysis are naming and being aware of your preferences, rethinking assumptions, and asking the right questions. Provocative and engrossing, 8 Billion and Counting is required reading for business leaders, policy makers, and anyone eager to anticipate political, economic, and social risks and opportunities. A deeper understanding of fertility, mortality, and migration promises to point toward the investments we need to make today to shape the future we want tomorrow.

Download or read book How the Word Is Passed written by Clint Smith and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR A NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NON-FICTION 'A beautifully readable reminder of how much of our urgent, collective history resounds in places all around us that have been hidden in plain sight.' Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish) Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks - those that are honest about the past and those that are not - which offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping a nation's collective history, and our own. It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving more than four hundred people. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola, a former plantation-turned-maximum-security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers. A deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our most essential stories are hidden in plain view - whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth or entire neighbourhoods like downtown Manhattan, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted. How the Word is Passed is a landmark book that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of the United States. Chosen as a book of the year by President Barack Obama, The Economist, Time, the New York Times and more, fans of Brit(ish) and Natives will be utterly captivated. What readers are saying about How the Word is Passed: 'How the Word Is Passed frees history, frees humanity to reckon honestly with the legacy of slavery. We need this book.' Ibram X. Kendi, Number One New York Times bestselling author 'An extraordinary contribution to the way we understand ourselves.' Julian Lucas, New York Times Book Review 'The detail and depth of the storytelling is vivid and visceral, making history present and real.' Hope Wabuke, NPR 'This isn't just a work of history, it's an intimate, active exploration of how we're still constructing and distorting our history." Ron Charles, The Washington Post 'In re-examining neighbourhoods, holidays and quotidian sites, Smith forces us to reconsider what we think we know about American history.' Time 'A history of slavery in this country unlike anything you've read before.' Entertainment Weekly 'A beautifully written, evocative, and timely meditation on the way slavery is commemorated in the United States.' Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author