The best way to understand and remember technical terms is to understand first their component parts, or roots. This dictionary has been designed primarily to meet the needs of the beginning student, the medical student, and the taxonomist, but it should be of value to all biologists.

    A supplemental reference provides an offbeat source of unusual, obscure, and very legitimate English language terms, clearly and whimsically defined for the benefit of those needing "just the right word."

     Parry began recording and studying a live tradition of oral narrative poetry in order to find an answer to the age-old Homeric Question: How had the author of the Iliad and Odyssey composed these two monumental epic poems at the very start of Europe's literary tradition? Parry's, and with him Lord's, enduring contribution--set forth in Lord's The Singer of Tales--was to demonstrate the process by which oral poets compose. Now reissued with a new Introduction and an invaluable audio and visual record, this widely influential book is newly enriched to better serve everyone interested in the art and craft of oral literature.

    Such is the point of view from which a noted philosopher and logician examines the notion of meaning and the linguistic mechanisms of objective reference. In the course of the discussion, Professor Quine pinpoints the difficulties involved in translation, brings to light the anomalies and conflicts implicit in our language's referential apparatus, clarifies semantic problems connected with the imputation of existence, and marshals reasons for admitting or repudiating each of various categories of supposed objects. He argues that the notion of a language-transcendent sentence-meaning must on the whole be rejected; meaningful studies in the semantics of reference can only be directed toward substantially the same language in which they are conducted.

    Whether you're a stuffy writer looking to gussy up your prose, a poindexter who thinks studying dictionaries is the cat's pajamas, or a muttonheaded fogey hoping to get a clue, Robert Chapman's Dictionary of American Slang fills the bill. Containing more than 19,000 terms of American slang, this lexicon represents all periods of American history, from phrases out of the 1880s, such as carrot-top for "redhead," to current '90s jargon such as carjacking. It covers the widely acceptable and the taboo, slang from cowboys and railroad workers and slang from rock & rollers, corporate America, and the gay community. It includes obsolete phrases such as canoeing for "making-out," and up-to-date terms relating to technology, such as listserv for "electronic mail list." Each item features pronunciation guides, word origins, and usage examples, and words that are derogatory or impolite are clearly labeled as such. A righteous reference and a lulu of a browser, the Dictionary of American Slangis an elegantly produced and scholarly rigorous linguistic knockout. --Stephanie Gold