Having already traced the roots of the idea of sovereignty, sacredness, and economy, he now turns to a perhaps unlikely topic: the concept of the oath. Following the Italian scholar Paolo Prodi, Agamben sees the oath as foundational for Western politics and undertakes an exploration of the roots of the phenomenon of the oath in human experience. He rejects the common idea that the oath finds its origin in religion, arguing instead that the oath points toward a particular response to the experience of language, a response that gave birth to both religion and law as we now know them. This book is important not only for readers of Agamben or of continental philosophy more broadly, but for anyone interested in questions relating to the relationships among religion, law, and language.

    

    It will effectively reveal and dispel any wrong-thinking surrounding this idea upon which all else stands. The purpose? To unburden you from all notions of ‘self’, allowing you to directly discover the raw, non-dual truth of Being.This isn't the first work that tackles this subject. But others have left it at “we can’t really know whether there’s anything beyond our experience”, while I go all the way and say that we can know – and in this book I’ll show you exactly how and why this idea of an objective, physical universe of time and space beyond our perceptions is nothing but a figment of our imagination.But it’s a book unlike all others on the contemporary non-dual awakening scene. You won’t find any ‘pointers’ in it. What you’ll find is stone cold logic hacking away at the very foundation of existence itself. And in its wake; when the dust finally settles; you’ll recognize that, not only were the words of the sages true all along, but they've gone from being a remote possibility to being the light and guiding principle of your life. What words?"Consciousness is all."

    Dedicating one short chapter to each, Casagrande brings her subject to life, teaching English usage through lively and amusing personal anecdotes. Mortal Syntax includes such chapters as: ~"I wish I was taller" ~"I am continuously watching Simpsons reruns" ~"Was it Horton that heard the Who?" Casagrande's clear and concise lessons-with entertaining titles and themes-make a potentially prickly subject go down like a spoonful of sugar.

    He later said that he had learned more in those two years than in any other equal part of his life. The Ring of Words reveals how his professional work on the Oxford English Dictionary influenced Tolkien's creative use of language in his fictional world. Here three senior editors of the OED offer an intriguing exploration of Tolkien's career as a lexicographer and illuminate his creativity as a word user and word creator. The centerpiece of the book is a wonderful collection of word studies which will delight the heart of Ring fans and word lovers everywhere. The editors look at the origin of such Tolkienesque words as hobbit, mithril, Smeagol, Ent, halfling, and worm (meaning dragon). Readers discover that a word such as mathom (anything a hobbit had no immediate use for, but was unwilling to throw away) was actually common in Old English, but that Mithril, on the other hand, is a complete invention (and the first Elven word to have an entry in the OED). And fans of Harry Potter will be surprised to find that Dumbledore (the name of Hogwart's headmaster) was a word used by Tolkien and many others (it is a dialect word meaning bumblebee). Few novelists have found so much of their creative inspiration in the shapes and histories of words. Presenting archival material not found anywhere else, The Ring of Words offers a fresh and unexplored angle on the literary achievements of one of the world's most famous and best-loved writers.

    This problem has deep philosophical implications: If languages are all the same, it implies a fundamental commonality--and thus mutual intelligibility--of human thought.We are now on the verge of solving this problem. Using a twenty-year-old theory proposed by the world's greatest living linguist, Noam Chomsky, researchers have found that the similarities among languages are more profound than the differences. Languages whose grammars seem completely incompatible may in fact be structurally almost identical, except for a difference in one simple rule. The discovery of these rules and how they may vary promises to yield a linguistic equivalent of the Periodic Table of the Elements: a single framework by which we can understand the fundamental structure of all human language. This is a landmark breakthrough both within linguistics, which will herewith finally become a full-fledged science, and in our understanding of the human mind.

    Perhaps the quote often attributed to P.T. Barnum is true—there really is a sucker born every minute.The NBA is in trouble. And as NBA agent Keith Glass describes it—he's part of the problem! If team owners are willing to throw millions of dollars his way for marginal players, why should he be the only one with the self-restraint to say "no"?In his insightful, funny, and often mind-numbingly bizarre tales of life in the NBA over the last twenty- five years, Keith Glass lets it fly from half-court. He'll tell you how we got to the present state—where an agent who makes millions off the game can't sit through one; why our NBA stars couldn't capture Olympic gold; and why the game he loves is in dire need of help.Glass has seen it all as the representative of players like Mark Eaton, the seven-foot-five center found working as a mechanic because he hated basketball; Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, who converted to Islam and brought the wrath of the league upon him when he refused to stand for the National Anthem; and first-round draft pick Quincy Douby, who was forced to enter the draft before graduating from Rutgers because of the harsh NCAA rules regarding college eligibility.With informative chapters such as "How to Feed Your Family on Only $14 Million a Year," "Eighty-one Feet of White Centers," and "From 6'11" to the 7- Eleven," Glass shatters the myth of NBA marketing: that everything about the game is great, and that as long as the fans in the luxury boxes are happy and weighed down with expensive merchandise, all is well. But have no fear! Keith Glass doesn't preach about the evils of highlight film slam-dunks—he'll just have you falling down laughing as he flagrantly fouls the league that was once the envy of the pro sports world.

    

    While much ado has been made about the role that Spanish may play in our national future, it would be a gross misrepresentation to label America a bilingual country. On the contrary, our languages are as varied as our origins. There is Basque in Nevada, Arabic in Detroit, Gullah in South Carolina. We speak European, Asian, and American Indian languages; we speak creoles, jargons, and pidgins. As a resident of Queens-among the most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse places on the planet-Elizabeth Little first began to wonder how this host of tongues had shaped the American experience. It was only a matter of time before she decided to take her questions on the road. In Trip of the Tongue, Little explores our nation's many cultures and languages in search of what they say about who we are individually, socially, and politically. This book is both a celebration of American multiculturalism and a reflection on what we value, what we fight for, and what we allow ourselves to forget. Elizabeth Little is a witty and endearing tour guide for this memorable and original trip.

    A ground-breaking book that sets out to demonstrate that Japanese is “simple, logical and beautiful” and that most of the apparently “arbitrary rules” that you “just have to learn” can be reduced to simple, easily intuitive patterns if you just understand how the language really works.

    It covered jazz, of course, but it also included Davis’s ruminations on race, politics and culture. Fascinated, Hef sent the writer—future Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Alex Haley, an unknown at the time—back to glean even more opinion and insight from Davis. The resulting exchange, published in the September 1962 issue, became the first official Playboy Interview and kicked off a remarkable run of public inquisition that continues today—and that has featured just about every cultural titan of the last half century.To celebrate the Interview’s 50th anniversary, the editors of Playboy have culled 50 of its most (in)famous Interviews and will publish them over the course of 50 weekdays (from September 4, 2012 to November 12, 2012) via Amazon’s Kindle Direct platform. Here is the interview with the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand from the March 1964 issue.

    In the fifth edition of this renowned advanced grammar textbook, the new author Dallin D. Oaks of Brigham Young University has preserved Stageberg's clear and concise linguistic approach to grammar instruction while updating the text for the 1990s advanced grammar student. Updated chapter material includes revised examples of an exercises for the material studied and the use of tree diagrams. In addition, the fifth edition emphasizes the significance of English grammar in speech and composition in two new chapters: Usage and Language Variation: Historical, Regional, and Social. Two new appendices--A Basic Introduction to Tree Diagramming and An Introduction to Transformational Grammar--provide further instruction regarding the use of tree diagrams and an overview of Transformational Generative-Grammar. As in previous editions, AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH GRAMMAR, Fifth Edition, provides a linguistic approach to grammar instruction that can be used to teach both advanced grammar and composition as well as non-major introductory linguistics courses.

    The author, Elliot Bogod, is a Founder and Managing Director of Broadway Realty, a real estate brokerage in Manhattan. With over twenty years experience, Elliot has sold over $2 billion in New York real estate. In this book, you will find: • A list of “magic words” often used in real estate investment, with clear and detailed explanations • Methods for evaluating the locations for your investments, using vibrant Manhattan neighborhoods as an example. • Review of different types of residential investments: condominiums, co-ops and townhouses • Detailed advice on investing in various types of commercial real estate: retail locations, offices, restaurants, hotels, garages and others • Multiple strategies, tactics and techniques for building wealth through your investments • Clear and concise information on mortgages, taxes and laws • Methods for achieving success through managing a team of experts working for you

    Mick Short considers how meanings and effects are generated in the three major literary genres, carying out stylistic analysis of poetry, drama and prose fiction in turn. He analyses a wide range of extracts from English literature, adopting an accessible approach to the analysis of literary texts which can be applied easily to other texts in English and in other languages.

    Laura M. Ahearn shows that young Nepalese people are applying their newly acquired literacy skills to love-letter writing, fostering a transition that involves not only a shift in marriage rituals, but also a change in how villagers conceive of their own ability to act and attribute responsibility for events. These developments have potential ramifications that extend far beyond the realm of marriage and well past the Himalayas.The love-letter correspondences examined by Ahearn also provide a deeper understanding of the social effects of literacy. While the acquisition of literary skills may open up new opportunities for some individuals, such skills can also impose new constraints, expectations, and disappointments. The increase in female literacy rates in Junigau in the 1990s made possible the emergence of new courtship practices and facilitated self-initiated marriages, but it also reinforced certain gender ideologies and undercut some avenues to social power, especially for women. Scholars, and students in such fields as anthropology, women's studies, linguistics, development studies, and South Asian studies will find this book ethnographically rich and theoretically insightful. Laura M. Ahearn is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University.