Showing results for "Grammar" in Linguistics

Better Vocabulary in 30 Minutes a Day offers a lively and entertaining method for adding a more impressive list of words to your everyday speech, and for learning how to use them effortlessly and accurately. Besides giving definitions, this invaluable guide also provides root meanings and elements of words so you can increase your vocabulary base by thousands of exciting new words and use them with aplomb in sentences.

In this classic, 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....

Successful word coinage—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' The Hidden History of Coined Words explores the etymological underworld of terms and expressions and uncovers plenty of hidden gems.

A kinder, funner usage guide to the ever-changing English language and a useful tool for both the grammar stickler and the more colloquial user of English, from linguist and veteran professor Anne Curzan “I was bowled over, page after page, by the author’s fine ear for our language and...

A compendium of 100 words and phrases smart people use--even if they only kinda sorta (secretly don't) know what they mean--with pithy definitions and fascinating etymologies to solidify their meanings. Your boss makes a joke about Schrodinger's cat--which is something you've heard of but you're...

In this wildly entertaining A to Z of verbal acrobatics, Gyles takes you on a whirlwind tour of our mother tongue – from the origins of words and correct grammar and punctuation, to similes, euphemisms and record breaking tongue twisters (try getting your mouth around floccinaucinihilipification!). An idiosyncratic blend of history, word play, anecdote, and hyperbole, all in 60-second instalments, this is Gyles Brandreth at his word-perfect, Just-a-Minute best. You’ll never mix your metaphors again...

This is a learned but always entertaining journey through the world of the Ancient Greeks, their extraordinary language and how it has shaped our own understanding of the world today. After all, what is language but the frame through which we understand the world? Davie aims to bring more than just humour, he seeks to trace the thread of ancient Greek thought that runs through our own civilization, always with the lightness of touch and fascinating etymology.

An expat's witty and insightful exploration of English and American cultural differences through the lens of language that will leave listeners gobsmacked. In That's Not English, the seemingly superficial differences between British and American English open the door to a deeper exploration of a historic and fascinating cultural divide. In each of the 30 chapters, Erin Moore explains a different word we use that says more about us than we think.

In its long history, the English language has had many lawmakers - those who have tried to regulate or otherwise organize the way we speak. The Lexicographer's Dilemma poses a pair of questions: What does proper English mean? And who gets to say what's right? Our ideas of correct or proper English have a history, and today's debates over the state of the language - whether about Ebonics in schools, the unique use of language in a South Park episode, or split infinitives in the Times - make sense only in historical context.

Was die deutsche Sprache kann! Ein geflügeltes Wort sagt, das Leben sei zu kurz, um Deutsch zu lernen. Ganz falsch! In diesem Hörbuch zeigt Roland Kaehlbrandt anhand von zehn sympathischen und handfesten Vorzügen, wie gut die deutsche Sprache tatsächlich gebaut und wie zugänglich sie deshalb ist. Praktische Beispiele und viel Humor begleiten uns auf diesem kenntnisreichen Streifzug durch die liebenswerten und nützlichen Eigenschaften einer alten und zugleich hochlebendigen, wunderschönen Sprache. Ein Hörbuch, das uns ganz und gar verzaubern wird!

An entertaining and informative guide to the most common 150 words even smart people use incorrectly, along with pithy forays into their fascinating etymologies and tangled histories of use and misuse. Even the most erudite among us use words like apocryphal, facetious, ironic, meteorite...

The history of a language is the history of the people who speak it, those who read and write it, and those who come into contact with it. Now, this series invites you to explore your heritage from an unconventional angle: through the origin and development of the English language. Leading your expedition is Christopher R. Fee, an award-winning professor and medievalist whose expertise spans Old English, Old Norse, and historical linguistics. With flair and gusto, he draws from this well of knowledge to help you trace the evolution of English across a fascinating range of cultures.

In 2003, the book Nigger started an intense conversation about the uses and implications of that epithet. The N Word moves beyond that short, provocative book by revealing how the word has both reflected and spread the scourge of bigotry in America.

Splendiferous Speech explores the main sources of the American vernacular - the expanding western frontier, the bumptious world of politics, and the sensation-filled pages of popular 19th-century newspapers. It's a process that started with the earliest English colonists (first word adoption - the Algonquian raccoon) and is still going strong today. Author Rosemarie Ostler takes listeners along on the journey as Americans learn to declare linguistic independence and embrace their own brand of speech.

After 40 years of making a living using words in every medium, print or electronic, Roy Blount Jr. still can't get over his ABCs. In Alphabet Juice, he celebrates the juju, the sonic and kinetic energies of letters and their combinations. Blount does not prescribe proper English. The franchise he claims is "over the counter" and concentrates more on questions such as these: Did you know that both mammal and matter derive from baby talk? Have you noticed how wince makes you wince?

What do we talk about when we talk about Irish? When we talk about saving or supporting a language do we mean the musical combination of syllables, or something more profound? How do new words enter a language, and what is the relationship between that strange dialect called Hiberno-English and its parent language? "Craic Baby" picks up exactly where "Motherfoclóir" left off and explores the very new and very old parts of the Irish language from a personal perspective.