Book picks similar to
West Indians and Their Language by Peter A. Roberts


1600-story-human-language
caribbean
lek
linguistics

Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang


Max Décharné - 2000
    It's great for decoding your favorite pulp fiction or noir classic.

Toward the Goal: The Kaka Story


Jeremy V. Jones - 2010
    A biography of Brazilian soccer player Kaká detailing his life and career.

Living with a Dead Language: My Romance with Latin


Ann Patty - 2016
    She was soon bored, aimless, and lost in the woods. Hoping to challenge her restless, word-loving brain, and to find a new engagement with life, she began a serious study of Latin as an auditor at local colleges.   In Living with a Dead Language, Patty weaves elements of her personal life into the confounding grammar and syntax of Latin as she chronicles not only the daily slog but also the deep pleasures of trying to master an inflected language. Courses in Roman history and epigraphy give her new insight into her tragic, long-deceased mother; Horace into the loss of a brilliant friend;, Lucretius into her tenacious drivenness and attraction to Buddhism. Catullus calls up her early days in 1970s New York while Ovid adds a delightful dimension to the flora and fauna that surround her. Finally, Virgil reconciles her to her new life—no longer an urban exile but a scholar, writer, and teacher. Along the way, she meets an intriguing, impassioned cast of characters: professors, students, and classicists outside of academia who become her new colleagues and who keep Latin very much alive. Written with humor, candor, and an infectious enthusiasm for words and grammar, Patty’s book is a celebration of how learning and literature can transform the past and lead to a new, unexpected future.

Talk on the Wild Side: The Untameable Nature of Language


Lane Greene - 2018
    But that just makes it all the more tempting to tame it. Many have tried, from sticklers for supposedly correct grammar to inventors of supposedly perfect languages; from software engineers working on machine translation to governments that see language management as politics by another means. But when you enter the lair of a wild beast, you can be lucky to escape with your wits.Join Lane Greene on a journey of discovery into the deep strangeness of language. Learn why grammar rules can never capture the extraordinary variety of ordinary usage. See what happens when you try to design a language that really makes sense. Find out why, for all the talk of decline in English, no language in recorded history has ever gone to the dogs, or ever could. And learn the fate of those bold individuals who, through heroism or ignorance, ventured to teach their tongue some new tricks.

Masters of the Word: How Media Shaped History from the Alphabet to the Internet


William J. Bernstein - 2013
    Bernstein’s A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World, an Economist and Financial Times Best Book of the Year, placed him firmly among the top flight of historians like Jared Diamond and Bill Bryson, capable of distilling major trends and reams of information into insightful, globe-spanning popular narrative. Bernstein explains how new communication technologies and in particular our access to them, impacted human society. Writing was born thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia. Spreading to Sumer, and then Egypt, this revolutionary tool allowed rulers to extend their control far and wide, giving rise to the world’s first empires. When Phoenician traders took their alphabet to Greece, literacy’s first boom led to the birth of drama and democracy. In Rome, it helped spell the downfall of the Republic. Later, medieval scriptoria and vernacular bibles gave rise to religious dissent, and with the combination of cheaper paper and Gutenberg’s printing press, the fuse of Reformation was lit. The Industrial Revolution brought the telegraph and the steam driven printing press, allowing information to move faster than ever before and to reach an even larger audience. But along with radio and television, these new technologies were more easily exploited by the powerful, as seen in Germany, the Soviet Union, even Rwanda, where radio incited genocide. With the rise of carbon duplicates (Russian samizdat), photocopying (the Pentagon Papers), the internet, social media and cell phones (the recent Arab Spring) more people have access to communications, making the world more connected than ever before. In Masters of the Word, Bernstein masterfully guides the reader through the vast history of communications, illustrating each step with colorful stories and anecdotes. This is a captivating, enlightening book, one that will change the way you look at technology, history, and power.

Oxford Guide to English Grammar


John Eastwood - 1994
    It is equally suitable for quick reference to Details and for more leisured study of broad grammar topics.The book is trorough in its coverage but pays most attention to points that are of importance to intermediate and advanced learners of English, and to their teachers.• The emphasis is on meanings and how they govern the choice of grammatical pattern.• Each chapter starts with a summary which reviews the topic as a whole and shows readers where to find the particular information they need.• Authentic texts are used to demonstrate features of discourse.• Many single-sentence example are also authentic.• Wherever it is helpful, examples are marked as formal or informal, literary or conversational.• Dependable advice is give on the avoidance of non-standard and incorrect usage.• A chapter is devoted to differences between American and British grammar.• Technical terms are used sparingly, and defined in a glossary.

Leadership and Crisis


Bobby Jindal - 2010
    And from the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster to Hurricane Katrina, he’s shown an astounding ability to beat the odds (and beat the bureaucrats) to get things done.Then again, Jindal is not your typical politician. The son of Indian immigrants, a Christian convert from Hinduism, and a Rhodes Scholar, Jindal presided over Louisiana’s healthcare system at age 24, headed the University of Louisiana system at 27, became a U.S. congressman at 33, and was elected governor of Louisiana at 36.Throughout his meteoric career, Jindal has dealt with some of the worst crises of our times, from natural disasters in his home state to out-of-control spending in Washington, D.C. His secret: the common sense solutions that bureaucrats (and politicians) ignore in favor of government–as–usual.In Leadership and Crisis, Jindal reveals: How the Obama administration spent too much time worrying about public perception and not enough on actually fighting the oil How the federal government actually impeded Louisiana’s efforts to stem the flood of oil Why the bureaucratic incompetence during Hurricane Katrina was even worse than you know How Bobby Jindal took on Louisiana’s infamous culture of corruption His own journey from Hinduism to Christianity, from student at Oxford to Governor of Louisiana, from policy wonk to instant midwife when he had to deliver his third child himself Filled with behind–the–scenes stories from the oil–slicked beaches of Louisiana to the corridors of power in the U.S. Capitol, Leadership and Crisis offers an insider’s view into one of the worst environmental disasters our nation has suffered—and into one of the most unique success stories of American politics.

Maybe I Should Just Shut Up and Go Away!: The Last No-Holds-Barred Literary Gasp--Part Memoir and Part Commentary--Of a 42-Year Veteran Talk Radio (A)Right-Wing Nut Job or (B)Libertarian Icon


Neal Boortz - 2012
    In his memoir, Maybe I Should Just Shut Up And Go Away, he looks back across the decades and shares the often-hilarious reality of what happens behind the scenes when you re a talk radio icon. Longtime friend with national radio greats Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, he tells how those relationships began in the hot seat of competition. Tributes are included from Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Home Depot Founder Bernie Marcus and 2012 presidential nominee Herman Cain. Though early predictions by those who knew him in his youth cast Boortz as a sure prospect to become a preacher, he took a different route to educating the masses. Longtime listeners are certain to become enthusiastic readers as Boortz finally tips his hat to more than four decades of teeing up controversy, political education and general entertainment for audiences across the country to enjoy and tells all they ve been wanting to know but couldn t get anyone to share until now."

Read People: Understand behaviour. Expertly communicate: 20 thought-provoking lessons


Rita Carter - 2018
    The increasing speed of communication in the modern world makes it more important than ever to understand the subtle behaviours behind everyday interactions. In 20 dip-in lessons, Rita Carter translates the signs that reveal a person's true feelings and intentions and exposes how these signals drive relationships, crowds and even society's behaviour. Learn the influencing tools used by leaders and recognise the fundamental patterns of behaviour that shape how we act and how we communicate. At Build and Become we believe in building knowledge that helps you navigate your world. Our books help you make sense of the changing world around you by taking you from concept to real-life application through 20 accessible lessons designed to make you think. Create your library of knowledge. For further information on Build&Become, follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

How English Became English: A Short History of a Global Language


Simon Horobin - 2016
    But where did English come from? And how has it evolved into the language used today? In Do You Speak English? Simon Horobin investigates the evolution of the English language, examining how the language continues to adapt even today, as English continues to find new speakers and new uses. Engaging with contemporary concerns about correctness, Horobin considers whether such changes are improvements, or evidence of slipping standards. What is the future for the English Language? Will Standard English continue to hold sway, or are we witnessing its replacement by newlyemerging Englishes?

For Who the Bell Tolls: One Man's Quest for Grammatical Perfection


David Marsh - 2013
    For four decades, he has worked for newspapers, from the Sun to the Financial Times, from local weeklies that sold a few thousand copies to the Guardian, with its global readership of nine million, turning the sow's ear of rough-and-ready reportage into a passable imitation of a silk purse.The chaos might be sloppy syntax, a disregard for grammar or a fundamental misunderstanding of what grammar is. It could be an adherence to "rules" that have no real basis and get in the way of fluent, unambiguous communication at the expense of ones that are actually useful. Clear, honest use of English has many enemies: politicians, business and marketing people, local authority and civil service jargonauts, rail companies, estate agents, academics ... and some journalists. This is the book to help defeat them.

The Well-Spoken Thesaurus: The Most Powerful Ways to Say Everyday Words and Phrases


Tom Heehler - 2011
    The fear of mispronouncing or misusing complex words is real and leaves many of us consigned to the lower levels* of the English Language. The secret to eloquence, however, lies in simplicity—the ability to use ordinary words in extraordinary ways.The Well-Spoken Thesaurus is your guide to eloquence, replacing the ordinary with the extraordinary. While a common thesaurus provides only synonyms as mere word-for-word equivalents, The Well-Spoken Thesaurus is filled with* dynamic reinventions of standard words and phrases.*lofty word, pretentious word *know what it is to *lower reaches, lower echelons *awash in, instilled with, dense with, rich in

Rogue Asset (Alex Reeve)


Andy McDermott - 2021
    You are a deniable asset. Betrayal is punished by death.'A writer of almost cinematic talent' DAILY EXPRESSAlex Reeve was Operative 66. A former special-ops soldier and one of the UK's most lethal weapons, he was a member of SC9 - an elite covert unit with a remit to assassinate the country's most dangerous enemies.Falsely accused of treason, Reeve was condemned to live in the shadows as the merciless killers he once trained alongside were ordered to terminate the 'rogue asset'.But tricked into revealing himself, Reeve is dragged into a deadly international conspiracy involving the British state, shadowy Russian agents... and his own father, a violent murderer newly released from prison.But if there's one man who can survive... it is Operative 66.From the internationally bestselling author of the Wilde & Chase series comes an explosive new thriller - the perfect pulse-racing read for fans of LEE CHILD, VINCE FLYNN and GREGG HURWITZ., ,

This Must Be the Place: Exclusive Chapter Sampler


Maggie O'Farrell - 2016
     Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California, a father he loathes in Brooklyn and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex-film star given to shooting at anyone who ventures up their driveway.He is also about to find out something about a woman he lost touch with twenty years ago, and this discovery will send him off-course, far away from wife and home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back?Maggie O'Farrell's seventh novel is a dazzling, intimate epic about who we leave behind and who we become as we search for our place in the world.

When the Mockingbird Won't Sing: True Grit in 1855, Oregon City (Oregon Journey Book 2)


Victoria Murata - 2019
    Twelve year-old Biddy has survived an intolerable life of indenture by remembering two things: adults can’t be trusted, and it’s best to be invisible. Due to an early trauma, she’s mute with no memory of her past. The man who holds her contract for indenture has evil plans for her, and he will stop at nothing to ensure his schemes come to fruition. Things look hopeless for Biddy until she meets two school teachers, Brenna and Emily. From that moment on, these three lives become intricately entwined. Biddy’s new champions take desperate measures to ensure her safety. Life and death choices are made and these accelerate into an unanticipated conclusion. As is often the case in life, what was wished for is granted in a most unexpected way. Victoria Murata has again embraced history to tell an enduring story of love and loss in our country’s not too distant past.