Check Your English Vocabulary for IELTS


Rawdon Wyatt - 2001
    Fully updated for this third edition, the book provides exercises to help teach and build vocabulary related to the IELTS test and also covers grammar, use of English, comprehension and spelling. Suitable for both self-study and the classroom, it includes a range of activities to help students build and improve their English vocabulary and language skills.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms


Chris Baldick - 1990
    Clear and entertaining explanations are given for words such as multi-accentuality, postmodernism, and hypertext. The dictionary also provides extensive coverage of traditional drama, rhetoric, literary history, and textual criticism. This edition includes useful advice on further reading for particularly complex terms, as well as helpful pronunciation guides on over 200 terms. Fully updated to include terms that have become prominent in literature in the last few years, from cyberpunk to antanaclasis, the Second Edition is ingeniously designed to tackle the less obvious terms that students and general readers will encounter.

Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing


Melissa Mohr - 2013
    With humor and insight, Melissa Mohr takes readers on a journey to discover how "swearing" has come to include both testifying with your hand on the Bible and calling someone a *#$&!* when they cut you off on the highway. She explores obscenities in ancient Rome and unearths the history of religious oaths in the Middle Ages, when swearing (or not swearing) an oath was often a matter of life and death. Holy Sh*t also explains the advancement of civility and corresponding censorship of language in the 18th century, considers the rise of racial slurs after World War II, examines the physiological effects of swearing and answers a question that preoccupies the FCC, the US Senate, and anyone who has recently overheard little kids at a playground: are we swearing more now than people did in the past?A gem of lexicography and cultural history, Holy Sh*t is a serious exploration of obscenity.

Depraved and Insulting English


Peter Novobatzky - 2002
    Who hasn't searched for the right word to describe a colleague's maschalephidrosis (runaway armpit perspiration) or a boss's pleonexia (insane greed)? And what better way is there to insult the scombroid landlord (resembling a mackerel) or that tumbrel of a brother-in-law (a person who is drunk to the point of vomiting) than by calling him by his rightful name? A compact compendium of ingenious words for anyone who's been tongue-tied, flabbergasted, or dumbfounded, Depraved and Insulting English supplies the appropriate vocabulary for any occasion. Word lovers, chronic insulters, berayers, bescumbers, and bespewers need fear no more—finding the correct word to wow your friends or silence your enemies just got a whole lot easier.

Editing Made Easy: Simple Rules for Effective Writing


Bruce Kaplan - 2001
    Because of the different spellings and conventions of American English, it has been unavailable here--until now. The new book is thoroughly revised, updated, expanded, and Americanized. It maintains the attractions of the original--friendly, easy-to-understand rules for improved writing. It's a quick read, and an easy reference for anybody who wants to communicate clearly with American English. The book is non-technical in its approach. It doesn't cover grammatical terms such as present perfect progressive or correlative conjunctions. It boils grammar and style into a few simple rules that will serve you well whether you are a journalist, a student, a novelist, a business executive, a blogger, or anybody else who would like to make effective use of written language.

History in English Words


Owen Barfield - 1926
    History in English Words, his classic historical excursion through the English language, is now back in print after five years.This popular book provides a brief, brilliant history of those who have spoken the Indo-European tongues. It is illustrated throughout by current English words—whose derivation from other languages, whose history in use and changes of meaning—record and unlock the larger history."In our language alone, not to speak of its many companions, the past history of humanity is spread out in an imperishable map, just as the history of the mineral earth lies embedded in the layers of its outer crust.... Language has preserved for us the inner, living history of our soul. It reveals the evolution of consciousness" (Owen Barfield).About the Author:Owen Barfield (1898-1997), British philosopher and critic, has been called the "First and Last Inkling" because of his influential and enduring role in the group known as the Oxford Inklings, which included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. It was Barfield who first advanced the ideas about language, myth, and belief that became identified with the thought and art of the Inklings. He is the author of numerous books, including Poetic Diction; Romanticism Comes of Age; Unancestoral Voice; History, Guilt, and Habit; and Worlds Apart, as well as works of fiction and poetry. His history of the evolution of human consciousness, Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry, achieved a place in the list of the "100 Best Spiritual Books of the Century."

100 Words To Make You Sound Smart


American Heritage - 2006
    Chosen by the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries, these words will appeal to anyone who wants to be a more compelling communicator—as a worker, consumer, advocate, friend, dinner companion, or even as a romantic prospect.The book includes a colorful variety of words, including handy words of just one syllable (such as glib) and words derived from the names of famous people (such as Freudian slip and Machiavellian).There are expressions from popular culture (Catch-22) and words that date back to classical civilization (spartan and stoic). Each word is clearly defined and shown in context with quotations from contemporary sources: magazines, newspapers, broadcast media, movies, and television. For many words, quotations from distinguished authors and speakers are also given and word histories are explained.Like its predecessors in this successful series, 100 Words to Make You Sound Smart provides an affordable and enjoyable way to communicate more effectively. It offers the coveted gift of gab to anyone who needs to “say it right”—and to anyone who wants to sound more articulate.

A History of the English Language


M.D.C. Drout - 2007
    The components of language are explained in easy-to-understand terms and the progression of the language from Germanic to Old, Middle, and Modern English is fully illustrated—including such revolutionary language upheavals as those brought about by the Norman Conquest and the Great Vowel Shift. One of the most interesting aspects of the English language lies in its variants, such as the “soda” vs. “pop” debate and the place of African-American English in modern culture. These and other dialectual curiosities are looked at in detail and placed in the context of today’s world. Finally, Professor Drout examines the future not only of the English language, but of all the world’s languages.

Essential Idioms in English: Phrasal Verbs and Collocations


Robert James Dixson - 1971
    The latest edition of "Essential Idioms in English" remains the resource of choice for mastering more than 500 common English idioms, phrasal verbs, and collocations. "Essential Idioms in English "thoroughly defines and illustrates each idiom, then reinforces its meaning and usage with multiple-choice, true-false, fill-in-the-blank, and matching exercises.

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers


Joseph Gibaldi - 1977
    For over half a century, the MLA Handbook is the guide millions of writers have relied on.The seventh edition is a comprehensive, up-to-date guide to research and writing in the online environment. It provides an authoritative update of MLA documentation style for use in student writing, including simplified guidelines for citing works published on the Web and new recommendations for citing several kinds of works, such as digital files and graphic narratives.Every copy of the seventh edition of the MLA Handbook comes with a code for accessing the accompanying Web site. New to this edition, the Web site provides- the full text of the print volume of the MLA Handbook- over two hundred additional examples- several research-project narratives--stories, with sample papers, that illustrate the steps successful students take in researching and writing papers- searching of the entire site, including the full text of the MLA Handbook- continuous access throughout the life of the seventh edition of the MLA Handbook

Metaphors We Live By


George Lakoff - 1980
    Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by", metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them.In this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson's influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations


John Bartlett - 1855
    This edition has been revised and edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Justin Kaplan.

An Exaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition


James Lipton - 1968
    Lipton in the Books of Venery that were the constant study of anyone who aspired to the title of gentleman in the fifteenth century. When Mr. Lipton's painstaking research revealed that five hundred years ago the terms of venery had already been turned into the Game of Venery, he embarked on an odyssey that has given us a "slouch of models," a "shrivel of critics," an "unction of undertakers," a "blur of Impressionists," a "score of bachelors," and a "pocket of quarterbacks." This ultimate edition of An Exaltation of Larks is Mr. Lipton's brilliant answer to the assault on language and literacy in the last decades of the twentieth century. In it you will find more than 1,100 resurrected or newly minted contributions to that most endangered of all species, our language, in a setting of 250 witty, beautiful, and remarkably apt engravings.

Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing


I.S.P. Nation - 2008
    By following these suggestions, which are organized around four strands - meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development - teachers will be able to design and present a balanced program for their students.Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing, and its companion text, Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking, are similar in format and the kinds of topics covered, but do not need to be used together. Drawing on research and theory in applied linguistics, their focus is strongly hands-on, featuringeasily applied principles,a large number of useful teaching techniques, andguidelines for testing and monitoring,All Certificate, Diploma, Masters and Doctoral courses for teachers of English as a second or foreign language include a teaching methods component. The texts are designed for and have been field tested in such programs.

How to Do Things with Words


J.L. Austin - 1955
    Austin was one of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century. The William James Lectures presented Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts on a wide variety of philosophical problems. These talks became the classic How to Do Things with Words.For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary. Students will find the new text clearer, and, at the same time, more faithful to the actual lectures. An appendix contains literal transcriptions of a number of marginal notes made by Austin but not included in the text. Comparison of the text with these annotations provides new dimensions to the study of Austin's work.