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Ballyhoo Buckaroo And Spuds Ingenious Tales Of Words And Their Origins
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Book Synopsis Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds by : Michael Quinion
Download or read book Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds written by Michael Quinion and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2006-03-14 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cat's pajamas, the bee's knees, and the whole nine yards rolled into one, this true feast for word lovers skewers commonly accepted word-origin myths and etymological folktales. Writing with flair and authority, word maven and Oxford English Dictionary contributor Michael Quinion shows us that the real story behind a word or phrase is often much stranger than the commonly accepted one. With this book in your arsenal, you'll have the last word in every word-lover's game of one-upmanship. So if you've ever wondered why we utter such oddities as "raining cats and dogs," "I couldn't care less," or "twenty-three skidoo," this one's for you. No ballyhoo!
Book Synopsis Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins by : Michael Quinion
Download or read book Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins written by Michael Quinion and published by Turtleback Books. This book was released on 2006-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Complete Idiot's Guide to Weird Word Origins by : Paul McFedries
Download or read book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Weird Word Origins written by Paul McFedries and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Get ready to chew the fat. This engaging, humorous new book explains the not-so-common origins of such commonly used phrases as “apple-pie order,” “chew the fat,” and “hat trick.” Presented in a fun, easy-to-read style, it provides entertaining insight on metaphorical phrases, weird words, and strange expressions and takes readers on a journey through the bizarre and eccentric origins that make up our everyday speech. • Word books have gained in popularity not just with students and linguaphiles, but with a general population interested in the fascinating development of our language. • Contains back stories for 500 intriguing words and phrases. • Fun to flip through and also fun to read cover to cover.
Book Synopsis The Hidden History of Coined Words by : Ralph Keyes
Download or read book The Hidden History of Coined Words written by Ralph Keyes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Successful word-coinages--those that stay in currency for a good long time--tend to conceal their beginnings. We take them at face value and rarely when and where they were first minted. Engaging, illuminating, and authoritative, Ralph Keyes's The Hidden History of Coined Words explores the etymological underworld of terms and expressions and uncovers plenty of hidden gems. He also finds some fascinating patterns, such as that successful neologisms are as likely to be created by chance as by design. A remarkable number of new words were coined whimsically, originally intended to troll or taunt. Knickers, for example, resulted from a hoax; big bang from an insult. Casual wisecracking produced software, crowdsource, and blog. More than a few resulted from happy accidents, such as typos, mistranslations, and mishearing (bigly and buttonhole), or from being taken entirely out of context (robotics). Neologizers (a Thomas Jefferson coinage) include not just scholars and writers but cartoonists, columnists, children's book authors. Wimp originated with a book series, as did goop, and nerd from a book by Dr. Seuss. Coinages are often contested, controversy swirling around such terms as gonzo, mojo, and booty call. Keyes considers all contenders, while also leading us through the fray between new word partisans, and those who resist them strenuously. He concludes with advice about how to make your own successful coinage. The Hidden History of Coined Words will appeal not just to word mavens but history buffs, trivia contesters, and anyone who loves the immersive power of language.
Book Synopsis Uncle John's Awesome 35th Anniversary Bathroom Reader by : Bathroom Readers' Institute
Download or read book Uncle John's Awesome 35th Anniversary Bathroom Reader written by Bathroom Readers' Institute and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 35th annual edition of Uncle John’s compendium features entertaining, informative, and amusing real-life stories from around the world. This 35th anniversary edition of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader is bursting with everything you could possibly want to read in the throne room, including short articles for a quick trip and lengthier page-turners for an extended visit. Uncle John and his team at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute have once again gathered the most entertaining and amusing stories from the realms of pop culture, history, science, and sports (not to mention accounts of even more dumb crooks!) for your reading pleasure. In addition, there are plenty of laugh-out-loud lists, amusing quotes, and odd factoids that will delight the most ardent of trivia fans.
Book Synopsis I Love It When You Talk Retro by : Ralph Keyes
Download or read book I Love It When You Talk Retro written by Ralph Keyes and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2009-03-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An entertaining and informative book about the fashion and fads of language Today's 18-year-olds may not know who Mrs. Robinson is, where the term "stuck in a groove" comes from, why 1984 was a year unlike any other, how big a bread box is, how to get to Peyton Place, or what the term Watergate refers to. I Love It When You Talk Retro discusses these verbal fossils that remain embedded in our national conversation long after the topic they refer to has galloped off into the sunset. That could be a person (Mrs. Robinson), product (Edsel), past bestseller (Catch-22), radio or TV show (Gangbusters), comic strip (Alphonse and Gaston), or advertisement (Where's the beef?) long forgotten. Such retroterms are words or phrases in current use whose origins lie in our past. Ralph Keyes takes us on an illuminating and engaging tour through the phenomenon that is Retrotalk—a journey, oftentimes along the timelines of American history and the faultlines of culture, that will add to the word-lover's store of trivia and obscure references. "The phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" is a mystery to young people today, as is "45rpm." Even older folks don't know the origins of "raked over the coals" and "cut to the chase." Keyes (The Quote Verifier) uses his skill as a sleuth of sources to track what he calls "retrotalk": "a slippery slope of puzzling allusions to past phenomena." He surveys the origins of "verbal fossils" from commercials (Kodak moment), jurisprudence (Twinkie defense), movies (pod people), cartoons (Caspar Milquetoast) and literature (brave new world). Some pop permutations percolated over decades: Radio's Take It or Leave It spawned a catch phrase so popular the program was retitled The $64 Question and later returned as TV's The $64,000 Question. Keyes's own book Is There Life After High School? became both a Broadway musical and a catch phrase. Some entries are self-evident or have speculative origins, but Keyes's nonacademic style and probing research make this both an entertaining read and a valuable reference work." --Publishers Weekly
Book Synopsis Uncle John's Truth, Trivia, and the Pursuit of Factiness Bathroom Reader by : Bathroom Readers' Institute
Download or read book Uncle John's Truth, Trivia, and the Pursuit of Factiness Bathroom Reader written by Bathroom Readers' Institute and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s all about the facts—and Uncle John is back with a ton of them! For the 32nd year, Uncle John and his loyal researchers have teamed up to bring you the latest tidbits from the world of pop culture, history, sports, and strange news stories. If you want to read about celebrity misdeeds, odd coincidences, and disastrous blunders, Uncle John’s Truth, Trivia, and the Pursuit of Factiness has what you need. With short articles for a quick trip to the throne room and longer page-turners for an extended visit, this all-new edition of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader is a satisfying read.
Download or read book Euphemania written by Ralph Keyes and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2010-12-14 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did die become kick the bucket, underwear become unmentionables, and having an affair become hiking the Appalachian trail? Originally used to avoid blasphemy, honor taboos, and make nice, euphemisms have become embedded in the fabric of our language. Euphemania traces the origins of euphemisms from a tool of the church to a form of gentility to today's instrument of commercial, political, and postmodern doublespeak. As much social commentary as a book for word lovers, Euphemania is a lively and thought-provoking look at the power of words and our power over them.
Book Synopsis Everything You Know About English Is Wrong by : Bill Brohaugh
Download or read book Everything You Know About English Is Wrong written by Bill Brohaugh and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2008-05-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I don't know how else to tell you this...everything you know about English is wrong. "If you love language and the unvarnished truth, you'll love Everything You Know About English Is Wrong. You'll have fun because his lively, comedic, skeptical voice will speak to you from the pages of his word-bethumped book." -Richard Lederer, author of Anguished English, Get Thee to a Punnery, and Word Wizard Now that you know, it's time to, well, bite the mother tongue. William Brohaugh, former editor of Writer's Digest, will be your tour guide on this delightful journey through the English language, pointing out all the misconceptions about our wonderful-and wonderfully confusing-native tongue. Tackling words, letters, grammar and rules, no sacred cow remains untipped as Brohaugh reveals such fascinating and irreverent shockers as: - If you figuratively climb the walls, you are agitated/frustrated/crazy. If you literally climb the walls, you are Spiderman. - "Biting the Mother Tongue": English does not come from England. - The word "queue" is the poster child of an English spelling rule so dominant we'll call it a dominatrix rule: "U must follow Q! Slave!" - So much of our vocabulary comes from the classical languages-clearly, Greece, and not Grease, is the word, is the word, is the word. -Emoticons: Unpleasant punctuational predictions "Better plotted than a glossary, more riveting than a thesaurus, more filmable than a Harry Potter index-and that's just Brohaugh's footsnorts... Imean, feetsnotes...umfeetsneets?...good gravy I'mglad I'mjust a cartoonist." -John Caldwell, one of Mad magazine's Usual Gang of Idiots This book guarantees you'll never look at the English language the same way again-if you write, read or speak it, it just ain't possible to live without this tell-all guide. ("Ain't," incidentally, is not a bad word.)
Book Synopsis Wide Awake in Slumberland by : Katherine Roeder
Download or read book Wide Awake in Slumberland written by Katherine Roeder and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2014 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first study to place this genius of modern comics creation in his historical context
Download or read book Good Ideas written by Michael Rosen and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2014-09-11 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in a world surrounded by all the stuff that education is supposed to be about: machines, bodies, languages, cities, votes, mountains, energy, movement, plays, food, liquids, collisions, protests, stones, windows. But the way we've been taught often excludes all sorts of practical ways of finding out about ideas, knowledge and culture - anything from cooking to fixing loo cisterns, from dance to model making, from collecting leaves to playing 'Who am I?'. The great thing is that you really can use everything around you to learn more. Learning should be much more fun and former children's laureate, million-selling author, broadcaster, father of five and all-round national treasure, Michael Rosen wants to show you how. Forget lists, passing tests and ticking boxes, the world outside the classroom can't be contained within the limits of any kind of curriculum - and it's all the better for it. Long car journeys, poems about farting, cake baking, even shouting at the TV can teach lessons that will last a lifetime. Packed with enough practical tips, stories and games to inspire a legion of anxious parents and bored children, Good Ideas shows that the best kind of education really does start at home.
Book Synopsis Port Out, Starboard Home by : Michael Quinion
Download or read book Port Out, Starboard Home written by Michael Quinion and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the true origin of the phrase 'one fell swoop'? Does the word 'honeymoon' really derive from an old Persian custom of giving the happy couple mead, a honey wine, for the first month after the wedding? The rapid growth of the internet and the use of email has increased the circulation of (usually) false tales about the evolution of language. In this entertaining and fascinating new book on the origins of words and expressions, Michael Quinion retells the mythic tales that have become popular currency - the word 'posh' deriving from 'port out, starboard home' - and also tries to find and explain the true stories behind the origins of phrases. Quinion offers explanations of why and how stories about words are created, and how misunderstanding word origins - while usually harmless - can have serious consequences.
Download or read book Cidermaking written by Michael B. Quinion and published by Shire Publications. This book was released on 1982 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cider has been made in pastoral areas of Britain and north-western Europe since ancient times and the techniques of rural cider makers are still in use today. This book explains the methods and traditions of the rustic orchardist and farm cider maker and describes the procedures of the travelling Victorian with his portable cider mill and press. The author also discusses modern, factory-based cider production, influenced by the time-honoured customs of the past, yet adapted to producing large quantities of cider for the mass consumer markets of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Crossword Lists written by Anne Stibbs and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Anagram Solver by : Bloomsbury Publishing
Download or read book Anagram Solver written by Bloomsbury Publishing and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 719 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anagram Solver is the essential guide to cracking all types of quiz and crossword featuring anagrams. Containing over 200,000 words and phrases, Anagram Solver includes plural noun forms, palindromes, idioms, first names and all parts of speech. Anagrams are grouped by the number of letters they contain with the letters set out in alphabetical order so that once the letters of an anagram are arranged alphabetically, finding the solution is as easy as locating the word in a dictionary.
Book Synopsis How to Study in College by : Walter Pauk
Download or read book How to Study in College written by Walter Pauk and published by Cengage Learning. This book was released on 2013-02-14 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over a million students have transformed adequate work into academic achievement with this best-selling text. HOW TO STUDY IN COLLEGE sets students on the path to success by helping them build a strong foundation of study skills, and learn how to gain, retain, and explain information. Based on widely tested educational and learning theories, HOW TO STUDY IN COLLEGE teaches study techniques such as visual thinking, active listening, concentration, note taking, and test taking, while also incorporating material on vocabulary building. Questions in the Margin, based on the Cornell Note Taking System, places key questions about content in the margins of the text to provide students with a means for reviewing and reciting the main ideas. Students then use this technique--the Q-System--to formulate their own questions. The Eleventh Edition maintains the straightforward and traditional academic format that has made HOW TO STUDY IN COLLEGE the leading study skills text in the market. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.
Download or read book Word Myths written by David Wilton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-11-06 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you "know" that posh comes from an acronym meaning "port out, starboard home"? That "the whole nine yards" comes from (pick one) the length of a WWII gunner's belt; the amount of fabric needed to make a kilt; a sarcastic football expression? That Chicago is called "The Windy City" because of the bloviating habits of its politicians, and not the breeze off the lake? If so, you need this book. David Wilton debunks the most persistently wrong word histories, and gives, to the best of our actual knowledge, the real stories behind these perennially mis-etymologized words. In addition, he explains why these wrong stories are created, disseminated, and persist, even after being corrected time and time again. What makes us cling to these stories, when the truth behind these words and phrases is available, for the most part, at any library or on the Internet? Arranged by chapters, this book avoids a dry A-Z format. Chapters separate misetymologies by kind, including The Perils of Political Correctness (picnics have nothing to do with lynchings), Posh, Phat Pommies (the problems of bacronyming--the desire to make every word into an acronym), and CANOE (which stands for the Conspiracy to Attribute Nautical Origins to Everything). Word Myths corrects long-held and far-flung examples of wrong etymologies, without taking the fun out of etymology itself. It's the best of both worlds: not only do you learn the many wrong stories behind these words, you also learn why and how they are created--and what the real story is.
