Originally paired with a major PBS miniseries, this book presents a stimulating and comprehensive record of spoken and written English—from its Anglo-Saxon origins some two thousand years ago to the present day, when English is the dominant language of commerce and culture with more than one billion English speakers around the world. From Cockney, Scouse, and Scots to Gulla, Singlish, Franglais, and the latest African American slang, this sweeping history of the English language is the essential introduction for anyone who wants to know more about our common tongue.

    Rare Book

    The book emphasizes the regularity of English in order to help the teacher to see English grammar as a coherent system.

    First published in 1986 and now a classic study of poetry and poetics in late twentieth-century America, this collection offers thirty-seven of Bernstein's essays, including the influential works "Thought's Measure" and "Semblance." Bernstein ranges over poets and visual artists as diverse as William Carlos Williams, Louis Zukovsky, Charles Olsen, and Robert Creeley. At once irreverent and deeply serious, as indebted to Groucho Marx as it is to Karl Marx, Content's Dream stakes out a clear cultural and aesthetic position for one extraordinary poet, for language poetry, and for our time.

    For each spelling you find rules which govern it, exceptions to the rules, sample words to use for teaching the sound or spelling, etymological information, and more. Each sound is keyed to the Phonics Made Plain cards and chart. The Appendix also contains an excellent article concerning reading problems of the older student or adult.

    This new, expanded ninth edition of the best-selling guide to style is based on The Economist's own house style manual, and is an invaluable companion for everyone who wants to communicate with the clarity, style and precision for which The Economist is renowned. As the introduction says, 'clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought.' THE STYLE GUIDE gives general advice on writing, points out common errors and cliches, offers guidance on consistent use of punctuation, abbreviations and capital letters, and contains an exhaustive range of reference material - covering everything from accountancy ratios and stock market indices to laws of nature and science. Some of the numerous useful rules and common mistakes pointed out in the guide include: * Which informs, that defines. This is the house that Jack built. But This house, which Jack built, is now falling down. * Discreet means circumspect or prudent; discrete means separate or distinct.Remember that "Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are" (Oscar Wilde). * Fortuitous means accidental, not fortunate or well-timed.

    It is a passionately written history of how the Scots have come to speak the way they do and has acted as a catalyst for radical changes in attitude towards the language. In this completely revised edition, Kay vigorously renews the social, cultural and political debate on Scotland's linguistic future, and argues convincingly for the necessity to retain and extend Scots if the nation is to hold on to its intrinsic values. Kay places Scots in an international context, comparing and contrasting it with other lesser-used European languages, while at home questioning the Scottish Executive's desire to pay anything more than lip service to this crucial part of our national identity. Language is central to people's existence, and this vivid account celebrates the survival of Scots in its various dialects, its literature and song. The mither tongue is a national treasure that thrives in many parts of the country and underpins the speech of everyone who calls themselves a Scot.

    In it you will find an explanation of how the language works, which is something you need to understand if you are to learn to express yourself correctly and effectively. You will find exercises and writing assignments that you need for practice. The book will teach you the difference between an effective sentence and an ineffective one, between strong writing and weak writing. You will learn to express yourself in correct, clear and interesting English.

    Students learn grammar and vocabulary intuitively through extended contextual reading and an innovative system of marginal notes, giving students the opportunity to learn Latin without resorting to translation.

    This revised edition includes a new Preface outlining developments in Relevance Theory since 1986, discussing the more serious criticisms of the theory, and envisaging possible revisions or extensions. The book sets out to lay the foundation for a unified theory of cognitive science. The authors argue than human cognition has a goal: we pay attention only to information which seems to us relevant. To communicate is to claim someone's attention, and hence to imply that the information communicated is relevant. Thus, a single property - relevance is seen as the key to human communication and cognition.A second important feature of the book is its approach to the study of reasoning. It elucidates the role of background or contextual information in spontaneous inference, and shows that non-demonstrative inference processes can be fruitfully analysed as a form of suitably constrained guesswork. It directly challenges recent claims that human central thought processes are likely to remain a mystery for some time to come.Thirdly, the authors offer new insight into language and literature, radically revising current view on the nature and goals of verbal comprehension, and in particular on metaphor, irony, style, speech acts, presupposition and implicature.

    "Hard edge.... [She] uses words with laser precision to explore facets which a lesser intelligence would never notice. Her sense of the essential is unfailing"--Ron Silliman. "A.'s phrasing and sculptured concision give her poems an exceptional formal coherence. Her ear shapes solid landscapes.... More typically she prefers an elusive humor, layered with parody and occasionally populated by cartoon characters in various stages of panic. The offhandedness of her manner is belied by the complex emotional charge she gets from apparently banal materials"--Geoffrey O'Brien, Voice Literary Supplement. "Armantrout's poems ride the fence of the Language School movement. PRECEDENCE features poems of wit and humor not typical of the movement"--John Stickney, The Columbus Dispatch.

    Fro the most innocuous creep at the party (pigwidgeon) to the motormouth who tyrannizes the car pool (blateroon), the dirtiest old man on the block (pornogenarian) to the lock-jawed Connecticut debutante (dentiloquist), this guide offers sparkling proof that you need never again be at a loss for words.

    These range from neogrammarian conceptualizations of sound change and analogy to present-day ideas on rule change and language mixture. To get a full grasp of the principles of historical linguistics it is therefore necessary to understand the nature and justifications (or shortcomings) of each of these 'layers', not just to look for a single 'overarching' theory. The major purpose of the book is to provide in up-to-date form such an understanding of the principles of historical linguistics and the related fields of comparative linguistics and linguistic reconstruction. In addition, the book provides a very broad exemplification of the principles of historical linguistics.

    The Seventh Edition sports a colorful new design and incorporates updated themes that draw upon students' knowledge and interests. Through a series of carefully paced lessons, this top-selling vocabulary textbook teaches students three critical skills: dictionary use, contextual clues, and Greek and Latin word elements that expand their repertoire of words. Easy to use and engaging, The World of Words prepares students for the academic vocabulary they will encounter in college.

    This book is for a wide audience and calls for thoroughly rethinking current views on language, thought, and society from classical scholarship through modern philosophy, anthropology, and poststructuralism.”—Walter J. Ong“All in all, we have in this book the summary statement of one of the great pioneers in the study of oral and literate culture, fascinating in its scope and rewarding in its sophistication. As have his other works, this book will contribute mightily to curing the biases resulting from our own literacy.”—J. Peter Denny, Canadian Journal of Linguistics“An extremely useful summary and extension of the revisionist thinking of Eric Havelock, whom most classicists and comparatists would rank among the premier classical scholars of the last three decades. . . . The book presents important (though controversial) ideas in. . . an available format.”—Choice

    In this charming and informative book, Britain's leading expert on the English language talks you through every stage in your child's language development. Over thirty years after its original publication, this new and updated edition of Listen to your Child shows us that while the world our children are growing up in may have changed, one thing has not: parents still need to listen. Gathering decades of research from psychologists and linguists, Professor Crystal shows how the more we know about language acquisition - from 'cooking' and 'babbling' to melodic 'scribble talk' and simple words and then to incessant chatter - the more there is to delight in.From birth to the early school years, Listen to your Child provides a painless introduction to the study of child language acquisition as well as invaluable advice for parents.

    From clowder to crwth, from geep to greedigut, it'll stretch your vocabulary and make the hours fly by. Inside you'll find:47 words about words60 words about sleep, or the lack thereof555 phobias152 types of government33 extremely long words, including one with 1,185 letters139 two-digit words and 122 words without vowels, a word-game lover's delight109 words about love, sex, and marriageAnd much more, including a special section on 8 different types of wordplay...

    

    Based on the reference book, MODERN ENGLISH: A PRACTICAL REFERENCE GUIDE, the workbooks provide carefully controlled exercises in a logically built up sequence from parts of speech (Part I) to complex structures (Part II). There are abundant exercises on specific points of usage, with clear, concise explanations so that students can see the point of the exercise immediately. The second edition provides additional exercises in each book as well as many reviews and tests. Part II includes a special TOEFL preparation together with the answers.

    It looks at how our species moved from being able to communicate only orally and to store information only in the head (rote memorisation) to the evolution of technologies for external reference: clay- and cunieform, reed-and-hieroglyph, bamboo-and-ideogram, parchment-and-alphabet, codices, books, pages, columns and so forth through the print revolution to the current electronic revolution. Along the way it looks at how this has affected languages like Latin, french, and English and people's attitudes to those languages - and to words and the listing of information about words. This intensely human subject is as compelling and important today as any account of kings, queens, wars and social upheaval.

    For advanced students. In Russian.

    Based on the reference book, Modern English : A Practical Reference Guide, the workbooks provide carefully controlled exercises in a logically built up sequence form parts of speech (Part1) to complex structures (PartII)There are abundant exercises on specific points of usages, with clear, concise explanations so that students can see the point of the exercise immediately.

    It discusses the linguistic and psychological theories relevant to vocabulary learning, describes with clear examples of traditional and current methods of presentation and practice, and suggests ways of assessing and supplementing the vocabulary component of coursebooks. Working with Words is an ideal resource for practising teachers and teachers in training.

    The author's principal concern remains with a contemporary situation, namely the role of Swahili in the context of work, industrial, artisanal, and artistic. When it was first formulated, the aim of my project was to describe what might be called the workers' culture of Shaba, through analyses of communicative (sociolinguistic) and cognitive (ethnosemantic) aspects of language use.

    He illustrates his points with lively examples ranging from nursery rhymes and limericks to recent experimental forms as well as familiar pieces from over the centuries. The book concludes with a Millennium Anthology, a salute to the poetry of the past thousand years, including pieces from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as well as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA.

    An ideal tool for study, the dictionary now provides authoritative coverage of over 26,000 words and phrases from every major field of reference, including science and technology, in addition to core general vocabulary. Simplified and orthodox Chinese characters are used throughout the dictionary, and thousands of examples illustrate and expand on how and when a word can be used. Also including a guide to the most commonly used radicals and an additional key to the pronunciation of Chinese, this dictionary is an indispensable reference tool.

    Although obviously a central concern of linguistics, the semantic behaviour of words has been unduly neglected in the current literature, which has tended to emphasize sentential semantics and its relation to formal systems of logic. In this textbook D. A. Cruse establishes in a principled and disciplined way the descriptive and generalizable facts about lexical relations that any formal theory of semantics will have to encompass. Among the topics covered in depth are idiomaticity, lexical ambiguity, synonymy, hierarchical relations such as hyponymy and meronymy, and various types of oppositeness. Syntagmatic relations are also treated in some detail. The discussions are richly illustrated by examples drawn almost entirely from English. Although a familiarity with traditional grammar is assumed, readers with no technical linguistic background will find the exposition always accessible. All readers with an interest in semantics will find in this original text not only essential background but a stimulating new perspective on the field.

    The present book offers, for the first time in any Western language, a complete translation of an ancient Chinese medical classic, the Nan-ching. The translation adheres to rigid sinological standards and applies philological and historiographic methods.   The original text of the Nan-ching was compiled during the first century A.D. by an unknown author. From that time forward, this ancient text provoked an ongoing stream of commentaries. Following the Sung era, it was misidentified as merely an explanatory sequel to the classic of the Yellow Emperor, the Huang-ti nei-ching. This volume, however, demonstrates that the Nan-ching should once again be regarded as a significant and innovative text in itself.   It marked the apex and the conclusion of the initial development phase of a conceptual system of health care based on the doctrines of the Five Phases and yinyang. As the classic of the medicine of systematic correspondence, the Nan-ching covers all aspects of theoretical and practical health care within these doctrines in an unusually systematic fashion. Most important is its innovative discussion of pulse diagnosis and needle treatment.   Unschuld combines the translation of the text of the Nan-ching with selected commentaries by twenty Chinese and Japanese authors from the past seventeen centuries. These commentaries provide insights into the processes of reception and transmission of ancient Chinese concepts from the Han era to the present time, and shed light on the issue of progress in Chinese medicine. Central to the book, and contributing to a completely new understanding of traditional Chinese medical thought, is the identification of a “patterned knowledge” that characterizes—in contrast to the monoparadigmatic tendencies in Western science and medicine—the literature and practice of traditional Chinese health care.   Unschuld’s translation of the Nan-ching is an accomplishment of monumental proportions. Anthropologists, historians, and sociologists as well as general readers interested in traditional Chinese medicine—but who lack Chinese language abilities—will at last have access to ancient Chinese concepts of health care and therapy. Filling an enormous gap in the literature, Nan-ching—The Classic of Difficult Issues is the kind of landmark work that will shape the study of Chinese medicine for years to come.

    It is often witty or philosophical and this Dictionary gathers together over 7,000 such phrases.

    . . . Unit 3 and Unit 4 of the Third Edition of the Cambridge Latin Course continue the stimulating, historically accurate story line of Units 1 and 2. They are wholly compatible with the new Fourth Edition Units 1 and 2 and include: full color illustrations of Roman ruins and artifacts that bring the ancient world to life Word Search study sections that help prepare students for standardized language tests Teacher's Manuals, Workbooks, Cassettes, Tests and Examinations

    123 irregular verbs are fully conjugated, pitfalls in sentence structure are analyzed, and rules are specified to help with potential trouble areas in spelling and punctuation.

    Useful features include a section on Spanish and English idioms, verb conjugations, and grammar notes.

     With over 17,000 entries, this is the most authoritative and comprehensive guide to word origins available in paperback. Based on The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, the principal authority on the origin and development of English words, it contains a wealth of information about ourlanguage and its history. For example, readers will learn that bungalow originally meant belonging to Bengal, that assassin comes from the Arabic for Hashish-eater, and that nice meant foolish or stupid in the thirteenth century, coy or shy in the fifteenth. And adder, anger, and umpirewere originally spelled with an initial n. These are but a few of the fascinating tidbits found in this dictionary, which is a must for anyone interested in the richness of the English language.

    An in-depth course for students, this program stresses development of conversational skill, vocabulary, pronunciation and mastery of grammar.

    Clear and readable, with none of the technicalities of theoretical linguistics, it is destined to become the standard introduction in English to Slavonic philology. Focusing on language as it wasactually used, the book is accessible to those students of Russian whose main interest is in literature rather than philology. Vlasto traces the merging of Russian with Old Church Slavonic to the evolution of classical modern Russian -- the standard literary language -- at the end of the 18thcentury.

    This text helps students understand and use 100 high-frequency American idioms in various grammatical and situational contexts.-- Twenty self-contained lessons move from highly controlled to less-controlled use of idioms.-- Provides intensive practice in exercises designed for fluency attainment as well as comprehension.-- Each lesson features a seven-part dialogue that introduces the idioms, with usage notes, structure practice, and comprehension exercises.

    R. Palmer's Mood and Modality in 1986, when the topic of modality was fairly unfamiliar, there has been considerable interest in the subject as well as in grammatical typology in general. Modality is concerned with mood (subjunctive etc.) and with modal markers such as English modal verbs (can, may, must etc.) and is treated as a single grammatical category found in most of the languages of the world. Palmer investigates this category, drawing on a wealth of examples from a wide variety of languages.

    It is not primarily concerned with specific pictures and the things people say about them, but rather with the way we talk about the idea of imagery, and all its related notions of picturing, imagining, perceiving, likening, and imitating. It is a book about images, therefore, that has no illustrations except for a few schematic diagrams, a book about vision written as if by a blind author for a blind reader. If it contains any insight into real, material pictures, it is the sort that might come to a blind listener, overhearing the conversation the sighted speakers talking about images. My hypothesis is that such a listener might see patterns in these conversations that would be invisible to the sighted participant.