Download or read book Balderdash Piffle written by Alex Games and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-12-15 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the fascinating stories behind the words and phrases we use every day. English is now the worlds most popular second language, understood by over 700 million people across the globe. Its use is amazingly broad: not only is it the language of Chaucer and Shakespeare, but also of hip-hop, international business and the internet (over 80% of home pages are in English). So where exactly do English words come from? They come from everywhere. English is a vast, rambling conglomeration of words and phrases from a huge variety of times and places, and every word has its own intriguing history. Balderdash & Piffle is a guidebook an entertaining look at what falls out of the chaotic family tree of English words when you uproot it and give it a damn good shake. Shaking the tree is writer, humourist and word-sleuth Alex Games. If youve ever wondered who first used cuppa in print, what language gave us shampoo, when we started saying window, where minging comes from, what Shakespeare had to say about geeks and why berk is really, really rude, youll find it all (and much more) inside. Youll also have the chance to do your own word-sleuthing, through the BBC Wordhunt appeal. Who knows if you have written evidence of a bouncy castle from before 1986, you could even re-write history
Download or read book A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English written by Eric Partridge and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 1426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive work on the subject, this Dictionary - available again in its eighth edition - gives a full account of slang and unconventional English over four centuries and will entertain and inform all language-lovers.
Download or read book Balderdash Piffle written by Alexander Games and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the brash jargon of celebrity magazines to the delicacies and feints of the euphemism, this work uncovers the stories that lie behind some of our best-loved words and expressions. It show you where thugs come from, why 'barmy' once had more to do with your beer than your brain, and how a little bit of 'hanky-panky' could literally work magic.
Download or read book A Dictionary of Catch Phrases written by Eric Partridge and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 1315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A catch phrase is a well-known, frequently-used phrase or saying that has `caught on' or become popular over along period of time. It is often witty or philosophical and this Dictionary gathers together over 7,000 such phrases.
Download or read book The American Mercury written by and published by . This book was released on 1924 with total page 738 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The American Mercury written by Henry Louis Mencken and published by . This book was released on 1924 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Utta Drivel Too written by Alan Pinkett and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alan Pinkett took up writing for the first time just a few years ago. He found he quite liked it and said he'd do some more if you're not careful. The result of that was his first comic novel, Utta Drivel, entered for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. He is now pleased to present its successor, Utta Drivel Too. It describes the laughter-filled lives of friends Wilfric, Boothroyd & Utta Drivel and their surreal comic adventures when their normal existence is periodically deflected by outside events. These include increasingly frequent attacks instigated by a man sworn to be Wilfric's enemy - a one-time Israeli landscape painter by the name of Mori Arty... *** An audaciously satirical work in which the author's wit will make you laugh out loud.
Download or read book At the Wording Desk written by Bill Casselman and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2016-03-30 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How, why, and whence does a word gain advent into the English vocabulary? That question has hundreds of thousands of vivid, sometimes funny answers. In At the Wording Desk, author Bill Casselman, one of Canada's leading etymologists, shares a collection of some of the more colorful and interesting word origins. With a dose of lively humor, he offers an explanation of a plethora of words and gives the historical Latin and Greek roots and their meaning as spoken and written throughout history. In At the Wording Desk, he: explains that the word "travel" comes from trepalium, a Roman torture device; examines the origin of English words which end in the pejorative suffix -ard such as coward, dullard, lubbard, and sluggard; discuss how canopy first meant mosquito net; defines the meaning of wind-rose, advection, and a host of other interesting words; and tells why carpe diem does not mean "seize the day." From thaumaturgy to clavis, xanthopterin, and more, Casselman offers an extensive look at the history of a variety of rare words.
Download or read book Ambrose Bierce s Write It Right written by Jan Freeman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-11-19 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1893, Ambrose Bierce declared "I am for preserving the ancient, primitive distinction between right and wrong." In Write it Right, originally published in 1909, Bierce turned this considerable zeal on the English language. The result revealed that the satirical author of The Devil's Dictionary had a keen ear for the vernacular--and that he hated it. This slim volume of his 300 or so reviled words and expressions contains many we use today with no hesitation at all. (Of "electrocution" he says, "To one having even an elementary knowledge of Latin grammar this word is no less than disgusting, and the thing meant by it is felt to be altogether too good for the word's inventor.") Jan Freeman, author of the weekly column "The Word" for the Boston Globe, annotates Bierce's rulings with style, humor, and in-depth research, revealing what Bierce got right--and what he didn't--and giving insight into how the language has changed over the past century. Write it Right, with its incisive wit and insight into the history of American English, is the perfect gift for word curmudgeons everywhere.
Download or read book Wordwatching written by Alex Horne and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-07-07 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alex Horne loves words. He loves them so much, in fact, that he's gone on a mental safari and invented some of his own ... all he needs to do now is get them into the dictionary. But, as Alex discovers, gaining entry into the official lexicon takes more than just a gentle word in the ear of the editor. Evidence is required - Alex needs what the dictionary authorities call a 'corpus' of examples, hard data showing that his new words are in widespread and long-term usage by people other than just him and his mum. So a corpus he resolves to create, no matter what obstacles he might meet on the way. This is the ridiculous story of one man's struggle to break into the dictionary. From covert word-dropping on Countdown to wilfully misinforming young schoolchildren, Alex tries it all in his quest for word-based stardom. Does he succeed? Exactly what is a 'mental safari'? And are you already using one of Alex's words without realising it? You won't regret spending your hard-earned honk on this hugely entertaining book.
Download or read book Kick the Bucket and Swing the Cat written by Alex Games and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Takes readers through the history of the English language and its etymology. This work discusses the trends, innovations and scandals that have shaped the meanings of our most popular words and expressions, from Chaucer to Internet jargon and Ancient Greek to American slang.
Download or read book A Deadly Deception written by Tessa Harris and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2019-08-27 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The streets of Victorian London are clothed in shadows and secrets in Tessa Harris’s gripping new mystery featuring flower seller Constance Piper ... London, July 1889. Eight months have passed since the horrific murder of Mary Jane Kelly. The residents of Whitechapel have begun breathing easy again—daring to leave windows open and walk about at twilight. But when old Alice McKenzie is found dead, throat slashed from ear to ear, the whispers begin once more: Jack the Ripper is back. Constance Piper, a flower seller with a psychic gift, was a friend to both women. With the supernatural help of her late mentor, Miss Emily Tindall, and her more grounded ally, police detective Thaddeus Hawkins, she uncovers links between the murders and a Fenian gang. The Fenians, committed to violence to further their goal of an independent Ireland, are also implicated in a vicious attack in which the Countess of Kildane’s uncle was killed. Could the Whitechapel murders be a ruse to make the British police look helpless? Soon, Constance is called upon for help. But there are spies everywhere in the city, and a bomb plot intended to incur devastating carnage. And as Constance is fast discovering, the greatest evil may not lurk in the grimy alleys of the East End, but in a conspiracy that runs from Whitechapel to the highest office in the land ...
Download or read book The Borisaurus written by Simon Walters and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-09 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you know your Boosterism from your Backstopectomy? Can you tell Prometheus from Cincinnatus, and if so, do you know what Prime Minister Boris Johnson is trying to say when he namechecks esoteric figures from the classics, quotes obscure phrases from history or just makes words up? Certainly, Johnson is the most verbose Prime Minister of recent years, no doubt the result of a classical education, a closet full of public-school confidence and a former career as a wordsmith for The Times. Boris, more than perhaps any other leader, knows the importance of words, but he also knows how to have serious fun with them. Welcome to The Borisaurus, a lexicon of the Prime Minister's funniest, wittiest, most interesting words and phrases compiled in one brilliant dictionary, with every entry accompanied by a guide to its etymology, pronunciation, meaning and the intention of its use.
Download or read book The Liar s Dictionary written by Eley Williams and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2021-01-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “You wouldn’t expect a comic novel about a dictionary to be a thriller too, but this one is. In fact, [it] is also a mystery, love story (two of them) and cliffhanging melodrama.” —The New York Times Book Review An award-winning novel that chronicles the charming misadventures of a lovelorn Victorian lexicographer and the young woman put on his trail a century later to root out his misdeeds while confronting questions of her own sexuality and place in the world. Mountweazel n. the phenomenon of false entries within dictionaries and works of reference. Often used as a safeguard against copyright infringement. In the final year of the nineteenth century, Peter Winceworth is toiling away at the letter S for Swansby’s multivolume Encyclopaedic Dictionary. But his disaffection with his colleagues compels him to assert some individual purpose and artistic freedom, and he begins inserting unauthorized, fictitious entries. In the present day, Mallory, the publisher’s young intern, starts to uncover these mountweazels in the process of digitization and through them senses their creator’s motivations, hopes, and desires. More pressingly, she’s also been contending with a threatening, anonymous caller who wants Swansby’s staff to “burn in hell.” As these two narratives coalesce, Winceworth and Mallory, separated by one hundred years, must discover how to negotiate the complexities of life’s often untrustworthy, hoax-strewn, and undefinable path. An exhilarating, laugh-out-loud debut, The Liar’s Dictionary celebrates the rigidity, fragility, absurdity, and joy of language while peering into questions of identity and finding one’s place in the world.
Download or read book Dictionary of Catch Phrases written by Eric Partridge and published by Scarborough House. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A catch phrase is a well-known, frequently-used phrase or saying that has `caught on' or become popular over along period of time. It is often witty or philosophical and this Dictionary gathers together over 7,000 such phrases.
Download or read book Poetry On Tap written by Luigi Pagano and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2013-02-03 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of poems in the English language, rhymed and free verse.
Download or read book Simon and Schuster s Crostics Treasury written by Thomas H. Middleton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1994-03 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The creator of crostics for The New York Times and Harper's introduces a dazzling collection of 75 crostic favorites from out-of-print puzzle books. These scintillating brainteasers will challenge even the most skillful crostics fanatics. Spiral-bound.
