In An Apple A Day...Caroline Taggart explores the truth behind our favourite proverbs, their history and whether they offer any genuine help to the recipient. Did you know that "The Old Testament" has an entire book devoted to proverbs? Or that 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' is a proverb from falconry that dates back to the Middle Ages? Many proverbs are still in use today, including the very famous 'slow and steady wins the race', which derives from one of the fables of Aesop, a slave in ancient Greece born in 620BC. Lighthearted but authoritative, An Apple A Day...proves that proverbs are as useful today as they ever were.

    Numerous examples throughout provide readers with real-life applications of the concepts of analog and digital communications systems, while chapter-end questions and problems give them a chance to test and review their understanding of fundamental and key topics. Modern digital and data communications systems, microwave radio communications systems, satellite communications systems, and optical fiber communications systems. Cellular and PCS telephone systems coverage presents the latest and most innovative technological advancements being made in cellular communication systems. Optical fiber communications chapter includes new sections on light sources, optical power, optical sources and link budget. Current topics include trellis encoding, CCITT modem recommendations, PCM line speed, extended superframe format, wavelength division multiplexing, Kepler's laws, Clark orbits, limits of visibility, Satellite Radio Navigation and Navstar GPS. For the study of electronic communications systems.

    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.

    From advertisements to e-mail, from materialism to remote controls, there's a witty answer for every situation. “You have been waiting patiently for a dictionary like this to come along. And now it is here,” recognizes Napoli. “Not that you give a crap.”

    The lifetime work of Professor Alexander Schmidt of Königsberg, this book has long been the indispensable companion for every person seriously interested in Shakespeare, Renaissance poetry and prose of any sort, or English literature. It is really two important books in one.Schmidt’s set contains every single word that Shakespeare used, not simply words that have changed their meaning since the seventeenth century, but every word in all the accepted plays and the poems. Covering both quartos and folios, it carefully distinguishes between shades of meaning for each word and provides exact definitions, plus governing phrases and locations, down to the numbered line of the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare. There is no other word dictionary comparable to this work.Even more useful to the general reader, however, is the incredible wealth of exact quotations. Arranged under the words of the quotation itself (hence no need to consult confusing subject classifications) are more than 50,000 exact quotations. Each is precisely located, so that you can easily refer back to the plays or poems themselves, if you wish context.Other features helpful to the scholar are appendixes on basic grammatical observations, a glossary of provincialisms, a list of words and sentences taken from foreign languages, a list of words that form the latter part of word-combinations. This third edition features a supplement with new findings.

    It contains everything the student needs to know about the psychology of language, including how we acquire, understand, produce, and store language. The third edition contains new chapters on how children learn to read, and how language is used in everyday settings. It also describes recent research on the impact of new techniques of brain imaging.The text is comprehensive and written in a lively and accessible style. It covers all the main topics in this complex field, focusing on reading, writing, speaking, and listening in both adult and child language. There is an emphasis on language processing as well as language production and coverage of the social basis of language. The text covers recent connectionist models of language, describing complex ideas in a clear and approachable manner. Following a strong developmental theme, the text describes how children acquire language (sometimes more than one), and also how they learn to read. The Psychology of Language also demonstrates how language is related to the brain and to other aspects of cognition.The Psychology of Language assumes no prior knowledge other than a grounding in the basic concepts of cognitive psychology. This third edition of this bestselling textbook will be essential reading for any student of cognition, psycholinguistics or the psychology of language. It will also be useful for those on speech and language therapy courses.

    Robinson is, where the term “stuck in a groove” comes from, why 1984 was a year unlike any other, how big a bread box is, how to get to Peyton Place, or what the term Watergate refers to. I Love It When You Talk Retro discusses these verbal fossils that remain embedded in our national conversation long after the topic they refer to has galloped off into the sunset. That could be a person (Mrs. Robinson), product (Edsel), past bestseller (Catch-22), radio or TV show (Gangbusters), comic strip (Alphonse and Gaston), or advertisement (Where’s the beef?) long forgotten. Such retroterms are words or phrases in current use whose origins lie in our past. Ralph Keyes takes us on an illuminating and engaging tour through the phenomenon that is Retrotalk—a journey, oftentimes along the timelines of American history and the faultlines of culture, that will add to the word-lover’s store of trivia and obscure references. "The phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” is a mystery to young people today, as is “45rpm.” Even older folks don’t know the origins of “raked over the coals” and “cut to the chase.” Keyes (The Quote Verifier) uses his skill as a sleuth of sources to track what he calls “retrotalk”: “a slippery slope of puzzling allusions to past phenomena.” He surveys the origins of “verbal fossils” from commercials (Kodak moment), jurisprudence (Twinkie defense), movies (pod people), cartoons (Caspar Milquetoast) and literature (brave new world). Some pop permutations percolated over decades: Radio’s Take It or Leave It spawned a catch phrase so popular the program was retitled The $64 Question and later returned as TV’s The $64,000 Question. Keyes’s own book Is There Life After High School? became both a Broadway musical and a catch phrase. Some entries are self-evident or have speculative origins, but Keyes’s nonacademic style and probing research make this both an entertaining read and a valuable reference work." --Publishers Weekly

    Quine's areas of interest are panoramic, as this lively book amply demonstrates.Moving from A (alphabet) to Z (zero), Quiddities roams through more than eighty topics, each providing a full measure of piquant thought, wordplay, and wisdom, couched in easy and elegant prose--"Quine at his unbuttoned best," in Donald Davidson's words. Philosophy, language, and mathematics are the subjects most fully represented; tides of entries include belief, communication, free will, idiotisms, longitude and latitude, marks, prizes, Latin pronunciation, tolerance, trinity. Even the more technical entries are larded with homely lore, anecdote, and whimsical humor.Quiddities will be a treat for admirers of Quine and for others who like to think, who care about language, and who enjoy the free play of intellect on topics large and small. For this select audience, it is an ideal book for browsing.

    It's great for decoding your favorite pulp fiction or noir classic.

    The Dawn of Language provides a fascinating survey of how grammar came into being and the differences or similarities between languages spoken around the world, before exploring how language eventually emerged in the very remote human past.Our intellectual and physiological changes through the process of evolution both have a bearing on our ability to acquire language. But to what extent is the evolution of language dependent on genes, or on environment? How has language evolved further, and how is it changing now, in the process of globalisation? And which aspects of language ensure that robots are not yet intelligent enough to reconstruct how language has evolved?Johansson's far-reaching, authoritative and research-based approach to language is brought to life through dozens of astonishing examples, both human and animal, in a fascinatingly erudite and entertaining volume for anyone who has ever contemplated not just why we speak the way we do, but why we speak at all.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    Debunking the myth of "pure" standard English, tackling controversial positions, and eschewing politically correct arguments, linguist John McWhorter considers speech patterns and regional accents to demonstrate just how the changes do occur. Wielding reason and humor, McWhorter ultimately explains why we must embrace these changes, ultimately revealing our American English in all its variety, expressiveness, and power.

    See also oxymoron, paradox.examples:"Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad."Victor Hugo"To lead the people, walk behind them." Lao-tzu"You'd be surprised how much it coststo look this cheap."Dolly PartonYou won't find the word "oxymoronica" in any dictionary (at least not yet) because Dr. Mardy Grothe introduces it to readers in this delightful collection of 1,400 of the most provocative quotations of all time. From ancient thinkers like Confucius, Aristotle, and Saint Augustine to great writers like Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and G. B. Shaw to modern social observers like Woody Allen and Lily Tomlin, Oxymoronica celebrates the power and beauty of paradoxical thinking. All areas of human activity are explored, including love, sex and romance, politics, the arts, the literary life, and, of course, marriage and family life. The wise and witty observations in this book are as highly entertaining as they are intellectually nourishing and are sure to grab the attention of language lovers everywhere.