Download or read book Can t Be Arsed written by Richard Wilson and published by Anova Books. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humour.
Download or read book How Not to Talk Like an Arse written by Richard Wilson and published by Protico. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking a hard look at the English language and the mess that it has become, this is a hilarious, and topical, self righteous stab at the invention of ridiculous, nonsensical words that not only are just plain crap but also make those who dare speak them sound like complete twits. The author lets loose on how those words were created and how they escaped and survived in the wild instead of being killed at a young age. Written in an utterly fantastic ranting style, this sharp shooting of the ridiculousness of the modern English language - and the morons who use it - is a must-have for word-lovers and grammar sticklers.
Download or read book Raggy Arsed Lads written by Allan Finlay and published by Amazon Digital Services LLC - KDP Print US. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in a small town of the industrial North of England in the early 1960's, this is a feel good story about the antics of a young man's attempt to make something of himself, with a little the help from the lads in his yard.Thwarted with bad luck and inexperience, their journey of persistence never to miss an opportunity through the hardships of the time, will make you smile.www.facebook.com/RaggyArsedLadsTwitter- @RaggyArsedLads
Download or read book Gobsmacked written by Ben Yagoda and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-09-24 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spot-on guide to how and why Americans have become so bloody keen on Britishisms—for good or ill The British love to complain that words and phrases imported from America—from French fries to Awesome, man!—are destroying the English language. But what about the influence going the other way? Britishisms have been making their way into the American lexicon for more than 150 years, but the process has accelerated since the turn of the twenty-first century. From acclaimed writer and language commentator Ben Yagoda, Gobsmacked! is a witty, entertaining, and enlightening account of how and why scores of British words and phrases—such as one-off, go missing, curate, early days, kerfuffle, easy peasy, and cheeky—have been enthusiastically taken up by Yanks. After tracing Britishisms that entered the American vocabulary in the nineteenth century and during the world wars, Gobsmacked! discusses the most-used British terms in America today. It features chapters on the American embrace of British insults and curses, sports terms, and words about food and drinks. The book also explores the American adoption of British spellings, pronunciations, and grammar, and cases where Americans have misconstrued British expressions (for example, changing can’t be arsed to can’t be asked) or adopted faux-British usages, like pronouncing divisive as “divissive.” Finally, the book offers some guidance on just how many Britishisms an American can safely adopt without coming off like an arse. Rigorously researched and documented but written in a light, conversational style, this is a book that general readers and language obsessives will love. Its revealing account of a surprising and underrecognized language revolution might even leave them, well, gobsmacked.
Download or read book Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang written by John Ayto and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2010-02-11 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering coverage of over 6,000 slang words and expressions from the Cockney 'abaht' to the American term 'zowie', this is the most authoritative dictionary of slang from the 20th and 21st centuries.
Download or read book The Prodigal Tongue written by Lynne Murphy and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CHOSEN BY THE ECONOMIST AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR An American linguist teaching in England explores the sibling rivalry between British and American English “English accents are the sexiest.” “Americans have ruined the English language.” Such claims about the English language are often repeated but rarely examined. Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English. By examining the causes and symptoms of American Verbal Inferiority Complex and its flipside, British Verbal Superiority Complex, Murphy unravels the prejudices, stereotypes and insecurities that shape our attitudes to our own language. With great humo(u)r and new insights, Lynne Murphy looks at the social, political and linguistic forces that have driven American and British English in different directions: how Americans got from centre to center, why British accents are growing away from American ones, and what different things we mean when we say estate, frown, or middle class. Is anyone winning this war of the words? Will Yanks and Brits ever really understand each other?
Download or read book The Complete Patter written by Michael Munro and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2013-10-06 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you have a baldy clue as to who the bears and junglies are? Confused by the thought of some cheekywatter from your cargo? Fancy a day out at Fort Weetabix? Or would you rather settle down with some swedgers? After all, you don't want to be a stank dodger. Confused? You need this book. Michael Munro has won the eternal gratitude of Glaswegians for his efforts in popularising their city's dialect, universally known as the 'patter'. This book is the most extensive collection of this rich and expressive language ever made. Often hilarious, sometimes coarse (but never dull!), good knowledge of the patter is the key to understanding Glasgow and its inhabitants.
Download or read book The Digested Read written by John Crace and published by RDR Books. This book was released on 2005-12 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary ombudsman John Crace never met an important book he didn't like to deconstruct. From Salman Rushdie to John Grisham, Crace retells the big books in just 500 bitingly satirical words, pointing his pen at the clunky plots, stylistic tics and pretensions of Big Ideas, as he turns publishers' golden dream books into dross.
Download or read book How to Not Write Bad written by Ben Yagoda and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ben Yagoda's How to Not Write Bad illustrates how we can all write better, more clearly, and for a wider readership. He offers advice on what he calls "not-writing-badly," which consists of the ability, first, to craft sentences that are correct in terms of spelling, diction (word choice), punctuation, and grammar, and that also display clarity, precision, and grace. Then he focuses on crafting whole paragraphs—with attention to cadence, consistency of tone, sentence transitions, and paragraph length. In a fun, comprehensive guide, Yagoda lays out the simple steps we can all take to make our writing more effective, more interesting—and just plain better.
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 Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded written by John Scalzi and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2010-01-05 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On September 13, 1998, John Scalzi sat down in front of his computer to write the first entry in his blog Whatever--and changed the history of the Internet as we know it today. What, you're not swallowing that one? Okay, fine: He started writing Whatever and amused about 15 people that first day. If that many. But he kept at it, for ten years and running. Now 40,000 people drop by on a daily basis to see what he's got to say. About what? Well, about whatever: Politics, writing, family, war, popular culture and cats (especially with bacon on them). Sometimes he's funny. Sometimes he's serious (mostly he's sarcastic). Sometimes people agree with him. Sometimes they send him hate mail, which he grades on originality and sends back. Along the way, Scalzi's become a best-selling, award-winning author, a father, and a geek celebrity. But no matter what, there's always another Whatever post to amuse and/or enrage his readers. Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded collects some of the best and most popular Whatever entries from the first ten years of the blog – a decade of Whatever, presented in delightfully random form, just as it should be. * Winner of the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Non-Fiction Book * Introduction by Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton Old Man's War Series #1 Old Man’s War #2 The Ghost Brigades #3 The Last Colony #4 Zoe’s Tale #5 The Human Division #6 The End of All Things Short fiction: “After the Coup” Other Tor Books The Android’s Dream Agent to the Stars Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded Fuzzy Nation Redshirts Lock In The Collapsing Empire (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book Yoga for People Who Can t Be Bothered to Do It written by Geoff Dyer and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2012-05-10 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Amsterdam to Cambodia, from Rome to Indonesia, from New Orleans to Libya, and from Detroit to Ko Pha-Ngan, Geoff Dyer finds himself both floundering about in a sea of grievances and finding moments of transcendental calm. This aberrant quest for peak experiences leads, ultimately, to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where, to quote Tarkovsky's Stalker, 'your most cherished desire will come true'.
Download or read book Project Hail Mary written by Andy Weir and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Martian, a lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science—in development as a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling. HUGO AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS: Bill Gates, GatesNotes, New York Public Library, Parade, Newsweek, Polygon, Shelf Awareness, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • “An epic story of redemption, discovery and cool speculative sci-fi.”—USA Today “If you loved The Martian, you’ll go crazy for Weir’s latest.”—The Washington Post Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he? An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.
Download or read book The Secret of Half Arsed Parenting written by Susie O'Brien and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Searching for permission to drop your standards, ditch the guilt and relax? The Secret of Half-arsed Parenting is a practical and entertaining antidote to the extreme stress of modern parenting. It pokes fun at the unrealistic goals and expectations thrust on parents today, and offers a way to raise kids with less pressure, less guilt, less stress and fewer cupcakes baked at midnight. It's not about doing a bad job. It's about recognising that parents don't have to be perfect. What's wrong with toasted sandwiches for dinner? Kids sharing bedrooms and bathrooms? The fact your child's first word was 'Bluey' rather than 'Mama'? Half-arsed parents let their kids succeed - and fail - on their own merits. They will protect them from bullies, head lice and mullet hairstyles, but not from every knock and bump of life that will make them better adults. Drawing on worrying research into anxiety in children and parents in this era of helicopter parenting, journalist and doctor of education Susie O'Brien lays out the case for embracing a bit of half-arsed parenting in your house. By doing half as much, you might just make everyone twice as happy. Here's how.
Download or read book The Art of Fact written by Kevin Kerrane and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1998-08-03 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and illuminating survey of literary journalism with both historical and international scope, this anthology is the only one of its kind. In a series of sparkling readings, Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda trace the evolution of the so-called "new" journalism back to the 18th century.
Download or read book About Town written by Ben Yagoda and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2000 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illuminated by interviews with more than fifty people, including the late Joseph Mitchell, William Steig, Roger Angell, Calvin Trillin, Pauline Kael, John Updike, and Ann Beattie, About Town penetrates the inner workings of the New Yorker as no other book has done."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Cassell s Dictionary of Slang written by Jonathon Green and published by Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.. This book was released on 2005 with total page 1600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its unparalleled coverage of English slang of all types (from 18th-century cant to contemporary gay slang), and its uncluttered editorial apparatus, Cassell's Dictionary of Slang was warmly received when its first edition appeared in 1998. 'Brilliant.' said Mark Lawson on BBC2's The Late Review; 'This is a terrific piece of work - learned, entertaining, funny, stimulating' said Jonathan Meades in The Evening Standard.But now the world's best single-volume dictionary of English slang is about to get even better. Jonathon Green has spent the last seven years on a vast project: to research in depth the English slang vocabulary and to hunt down and record written instances of the use of as many slang words as possible. This has entailed trawling through more than 4000 books - plus song lyrics, TV and movie scripts, and many newspapers and magazines - for relevant material. The research has thrown up some fascinating results
