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The Cabinet Of Linguistic Curiosities
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Book Synopsis The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities by : Paul Anthony Jones
Download or read book The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities written by Paul Anthony Jones and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-10-14 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Open The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities and you’ll find both a word and a day to remember, every day of the year. Each day has its own dedicated entry, on which a curious or notable event—and an equally curious or notable word—are explored. On the day on which flirting was banned in New York City, for instance, you’ll discover why to “sheep’s-eye” someone once meant to look at them amorously. On the day on which a disillusioned San Franciscan declared himself Emperor of the United States, you’ll find the word “mamamouchi,” a term for people who consider themselves more important than they truly are. And on the day on which George Frideric Handel completed his 259-page Messiah after twenty-four days of frenzied work, you’ll see why a French loanword, literally meaning “a small wooden barrow,” is used to refer to an intense period of work undertaken to meet a deadline. The English language is vast enough to supply us with a word for every occasion—and this linguistic “wunderkammer” is here to prove precisely that. So whatever date this book has found its way into your hands, there’s an entire year’s worth of linguistic curiosities waiting to be found.
Book Synopsis The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities by : Paul Anthony Jones
Download or read book The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities written by Paul Anthony Jones and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-10-14 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A day-by-day journey through 366 delightfully archaic words and quirky historical trivia. Open The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities and you’ll find both a word and a day to remember, every day of the year. Each day has its own dedicated entry, on which a curious or notable event—and an equally curious or notable word—are explored. On the day on which flirting was banned in New York City, for instance, you’ll discover why to “sheep’s-eye” someone once meant to look at them amorously. On the day on which a disillusioned San Franciscan declared himself Emperor of the United States, you’ll find the word “mamamouchi,” a term for people who consider themselves more important than they truly are. And on the day on which George Frideric Handel completed his 259-page Messiah after twenty-four days of frenzied work, you’ll see why a French loanword, literally meaning “a small wooden barrow,” is used to refer to an intense period of work undertaken to meet a deadline. The English language is vast enough to supply us with a word for every occasion—and this linguistic “wunderkammer” is here to prove precisely that. So whatever date this book has found its way into your hands, there’s an entire year’s worth of linguistic curiosities waiting to be found.
Download or read book Word Drops written by Paul Anthony Jones and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From aardvark to zenzizenzizenzic, Word Drops collects a thousand obscure words and language facts in one fascinating chain of word associations. Did you know, for example, that scandal derives from the Latin for "stumbling block" and originally described a trap for a wild animal? In nineteenth-century slang a wolf trap was a corrupt casino. Casino means "little house" in Italian. Roulette means "little wheel" in French. A wheeler is someone who attends auctions to bid on items merely to increase their sale price. Such links take readers on an unexpected journey through linguistic oddities. Inspired by the popular @HaggardHawks Twitter account, Word Drops also uses an intriguing series of annotations to add background and historical context on everything from Anglo-Saxon cures for insanity to Samuel Pepys's cure for a hangover. This unique book will delight anyone who loves language, etymology, and word games. Not for sale in the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, or Canada
Book Synopsis Around the World in 80 Words by : Paul Anthony Jones
Download or read book Around the World in 80 Words written by Paul Anthony Jones and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes a place so memorable that it survives forever in a word? In this captivating round-the-world tour, Paul Anthony Jones acts as your guide through the intriguing stories of how eighty places became immortalized in the English language. You’ll discover why the origins of turkeys, limericks, Brazil nuts, and Panama hats aren’t quite as straightforward as you might presume. If you’ve never heard of the tiny Czech mining town of Jáchymov—or Joachimsthal, as it was known until the late 1800s—you’re not alone, which makes its claim to fame as the origin of the word “dollar” all the more extraordinary. The story of how the Great Dane isn’t all that Danish makes the list, as does the Jordanian mountain whose name has become a byword for a tantalizing glimpse. We’ll also find out what the Philippines has given to your office inbox, what Alaska has given to your liquor cabinet, and how a speech given by a bumbling North Carolinian gave us a word for impenetrable nonsense. Surprising, entertaining, and illuminating, this is essential reading for armchair travelers and word nerds. Our dictionaries are full of hidden histories, tales, and adventures from all over the world—if you know where to look.
Book Synopsis The Cabinet of Calm by : Paul Anthony Jones
Download or read book The Cabinet of Calm written by Paul Anthony Jones and published by Elliott & Thompson. This book was released on 2021-04 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Open The Cabinet of Calm to find a comforting word that's equal to your troubles. Beginning with the griefs or discomforts we all feel on difficult days, Paul Anthony Jones offers us a matching linguistic remedy: fifty-one soothing words for troubled times. These kind words - alongside their definitions and their stories - will calm and inspire; comfort and delight; and provide fresh hope. Written with a trademark lightness of touch, The Cabinet of Calm shows us that we're not alone. Someone else has felt like this before, and so there's a word to help, whatever the challenge. So much more than a book of words, The Cabinet of Calm will soothe your soul and ease your mind.
Download or read book Word Drops written by Paul Anthony Jones and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From aardvark to zenzizenzizenzic, Word Drops collects a thousand obscure words and language facts in one fascinating chain of word associations. Did you know, for example, that scandal derives from the Latin for “stumbling block” and originally described a trap for a wild animal? In nineteenth-century slang a wolf trap was a corrupt casino. Casino means “little house” in Italian. Roulette means “little wheel” in French. A wheeler is someone who attends auctions to bid on items merely to increase their sale price. Such links take readers on an unexpected journey through linguistic oddities. Inspired by the popular @HaggardHawks Twitter account, Word Drops also uses an intriguing series of annotations to add background and historical context on everything from Anglo-Saxon cures for insanity to Samuel Pepys’s cure for a hangover. This unique book will delight anyone who loves language, etymology, and word games. Not for sale in the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, or Canada
Book Synopsis What Language Is by : John McWhorter
Download or read book What Language Is written by John McWhorter and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-02-12 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author and renowned linguist, John McWhorter, explores the complicated and fascinating world of languages. From Standard English to Black English; obscure tongues only spoken by a few thousand people in the world to the big ones like Mandarin - What Language Is celebrates the history and curiosities of languages around the world and smashes our assumptions about "correct" grammar. An eye-opening tour for all language lovers, What Language Is offers a fascinating new perspective on the way humans communicate. From vanishing languages spoken by a few hundred people to major tongues like Chinese, with copious revelations about the hodgepodge nature of English, John McWhorter shows readers how to see and hear languages as a linguist does. Packed with Big Ideas about language alongside wonderful trivia, What Language Is explains how languages across the globe (the Queen's English and Surinam creoles alike) originate, evolve, multiply, and divide. Raising provocative questions about what qualifies as a language (so-called slang does have structured grammar), McWhorter also takes readers on a marvelous journey through time and place-from Persian to the languages of Sri Lanka- to deliver a feast of facts about the wonders of human linguistic expression.
Book Synopsis The Accidental Dictionary by : Paul Anthony Jones
Download or read book The Accidental Dictionary written by Paul Anthony Jones and published by . This book was released on 2019-06-13 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brimming with hidden histories and tantalising twists, The Accidental Dictionary tells the extraordinary stories behind ordinary words. Our everyday language is full of surprises; its origins are stranger than you might think. Any word might be knocked and buffeted, subjected to twists and turns, expansions and contractions, happy and unhappy accidents. There are intriguing tales behind even the most familiar terms, and they can say as much about the present as they do the past. Busking, for instance, originally meant piracy. Grin meant to snarl. A bimbo was a man, nice meant ignorant, glamour was magic and a cupboard was a table... Focusing on 100 surprising threads in the evolution of English, The Accidental Dictionary reveals the etymological origins and quirky developments that have led to the meanings we take for granted today. It is a weird and wonderful journey into words. "A real delight ... hidden gems nestle on every page" -- JaffaReadsToo "The Accidental Dictionary is certainly worth adding [to a bookshelf]... I knew very few of these, which is a good thing, and now I know more, which is a better one" -- Marcus Berkmann, Spectator Christmas books 2016
Book Synopsis The Language Instinct by : Steven Pinker
Download or read book The Language Instinct written by Steven Pinker and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-12-14 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A brilliant, witty, and altogether satisfying book." — New York Times Book Review The classic work on the development of human language by the world’s leading expert on language and the mind In The Language Instinct, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America. This edition includes an update on advances in the science of language since The Language Instinct was first published.
Book Synopsis Haggard Hawks and Paltry Poltroons by : Paul Anthony Jones
Download or read book Haggard Hawks and Paltry Poltroons written by Paul Anthony Jones and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2013-10-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do the following ten words all have in common - haggard, mews, codger, arouse, musket, poltroon, gorge, allure, pounce and turn-tail? All fairly familiar and straightforward words, after a little digging into their histories it turns out that all of them derive from falconry: the adjective haggard described an adult falcon captured from the wild; mews were the enclosures hawks were kept in whilst moulting; codger is thought to come from 'cadger', the member of a hunting party who carried the birds' perches, and so on. This, essentially, is what Ten Words is all about - the book collects together hundreds of the most intriguing, surprising and little known histories and etymologies of a whole host of English words. From ancient place names to unusual languages, and obscure professions to military slang, this is a fascinating treasure trove of linguistic facts.
Book Synopsis The British Isles by : Paul Anthony Jones
Download or read book The British Isles written by Paul Anthony Jones and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2012-11-07 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a Scottish waterfall three times the height of Niagara Falls to the last foreign invasion of Britain, The British Isles: A Trivia Gazetteer brings together hundreds of remarkable facts concerning different locations across Britain and Ireland. An As much an accessible and informative reference book as it is an entertaining miscellany.
Book Synopsis Word Lover's Dictionary by : Josefa Heifetz
Download or read book Word Lover's Dictionary written by Josefa Heifetz and published by . This book was released on 2002-07-31 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Through the Language Glass by : Guy Deutscher
Download or read book Through the Language Glass written by Guy Deutscher and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2010-08-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A masterpiece of linguistics scholarship, at once erudite and entertaining, confronts the thorny question of how—and whether—culture shapes language and language, culture Linguistics has long shied away from claiming any link between a language and the culture of its speakers: too much simplistic (even bigoted) chatter about the romance of Italian and the goose-stepping orderliness of German has made serious thinkers wary of the entire subject. But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language—and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for "blue"? Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is—yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water—a "she"—becomes a "he" once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial. Audacious, delightful, and field-changing, Through the Language Glass is a classic of intellectual discovery.
Book Synopsis You're Saying It Wrong by : Ross Petras
Download or read book You're Saying It Wrong written by Ross Petras and published by Ten Speed Press. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For word nerds and grammar geeks, a witty guide to the most commonly mispronounced words, along with their correct pronunciations and pithy forays into their fascinating etymologies and histories of use and misuse. With wit and good humor, this handy little book not only saves us from sticky linguistic situations but also provides fascinating cocktail-party-ready anecdotes. Entries reveal how to pronounce boatswain like an old salt on the deck of a ship, trompe l'oeil like a bona fide art expert, and haricot vert like a foodie, while arming us with the knowledge of why certain words are correctly pronounced the "slangy" way (they came about before dictionaries), what stalks of grain have to do with pronunciation, and more. With bonus sidebars like "How to Sound like a Seasoned Traveler" and "How to Sound Cultured," readers will be able to speak about foreign foods and places, fashion, philosophy, and literature with authority.
Book Synopsis The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography by : Graham Robb
Download or read book The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography written by Graham Robb and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008-10-17 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A witty, engaging narrative style…[Robb's] approach is particularly engrossing." —New York Times Book Review A narrative of exploration—full of strange landscapes and even stranger inhabitants—that explains the enduring fascination of France. While Gustave Eiffel was changing the skyline of Paris, large parts of France were still terra incognita. Even in the age of railways and newspapers, France was a land of ancient tribal divisions, prehistoric communication networks, and pre-Christian beliefs. French itself was a minority language. Graham Robb describes that unknown world in arresting narrative detail. He recounts the epic journeys of mapmakers, scientists, soldiers, administrators, and intrepid tourists, of itinerant workers, pilgrims, and herdsmen with their millions of migratory domestic animals. We learn how France was explored, charted, and colonized, and how the imperial influence of Paris was gradually extended throughout a kingdom of isolated towns and villages. The Discovery of France explains how the modern nation came to be and how poorly understood that nation still is today. Above all, it shows how much of France—past and present—remains to be discovered. A New York Times Notable Book, Publishers Weekly Best Book, Slate Best Book, and Booklist Editor's Choice.
Download or read book Lost Worlds written by Michael Bywater and published by Granta. This book was released on 2005 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Funny, erudite and fascinating, Bywater's 'Lost worlds' is a treasure trove of spectacularly miscellaneous knowledge, all of it worth knowing, about things lost and gone, many of them worh regretting. Bywater writes with a razor-sharp wit and flashes of real profundity; his magpie genius has found a dazzling outlet here" -- preview by A.C. Grayling (first page)
Book Synopsis Economical Writing, Third Edition by : Deirdre Nansen McCloskey
Download or read book Economical Writing, Third Edition written by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Write clearly about any subject: “Writers should check out Economical Writing, and editors should recommend it. Your future readers will be thankful.” —Journal of Scholarly Publishing Economics is not a field known for good writing. Charts, yes. Sparkling prose, no. Except, that is, when it comes to Deirdre Nansen McCloskey. Her conversational and witty yet always clear style is a hallmark of her classic works of economic history, enlivening the dismal science and engaging readers well beyond the discipline. And now she’s here to share the secrets of how it’s done, no matter what your field. Economical Writing is itself economical: a collection of thirty-five pithy rules for making your writing clear, concise, and effective. Proceeding from big-picture ideas to concrete strategies for improvement at the level of the paragraph, sentence, or word, McCloskey shows us that good writing, after all, is not just a matter of taste—it’s a product of adept intuition and a rigorous revision process. Debunking stale rules, warning us that “footnotes are nests for pedants,” and offering an arsenal of readily applicable tools and methods, she shows writers of all levels of experience how to rethink the way they approach their work, and gives them the knowledge to turn mediocre prose into magic. At once efficient and digestible, hilarious and provocative, Economical Writing lives up to its promise. With McCloskey as our guide, we discover how any piece of writing—on economics or any other subject—can be a pleasure to read.
