The bestselling grammar book has been updated and revised to include the latest and greatest on the basics and subtleties of English, and features a new chapter on the language of the Internet.

    Teaching Pronunciation offers current and prospective teachers of English a comprehensive treatment of pronunciation pedagogy, drawing on current theory and practice. An overview of teaching issues from the perspective of different methodologies and second language acquisition research is provided. It has a thorough grounding in the sound system of North American English, and contains insights into how this sound system intersects with listening, morphology, and spelling. It also contains diagnostic tools, assessment measures, and suggestions for syllabus design. Follow-up exercises guide teachers in developing a range of classroom activities within a communicative framework.

    How do you react to sandwich boards, road signs, laminated instructions, and other written missives that are just not exactly what their creator meant? If you've ever (gently) judged anyone else for their linguistic failures, if you find yourself guffawing about the frequent confusion between "incontinence" and "inconvenience," if you've ever been tempted to whip out your marker to add in or cross out apostrophes, and if you've refused to answer e-mails in which "your" and "you're" are used interchangeably, this book is for you. With pictures culled from the Facebook group by the same name, I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar is a hilarious and eye-opening tour through restaurants and shops, through parking lots and along winding roads, and around the world.

    The series presents a variety of words that cover a large percentage of the words that can be found in many spoken or written texts. Thus, after mastering these target words, learners will be able to fully understand vocabulary items when they encounter them in written and spoken form. Each unit presents 20 words which are defined and used in sample sentences. The activities in the books are designed to present the words in different uses so that learners can fully see how they can be utilized. Also at the end of each unit there is a story whch contains the unit's target words to give learners further examples of the words in use. Each level properly prepares the learner for the next which progressively challenges the learner with more sophisticated vocabulary and stories. Key features include: (1) Clear, easy to understand definitions and examples; (2) Various activities to reinforce target vocabulary; (3) Progressive development of vocabulary across levels; (4) Original stories which utilize target words; (5) Useful color images that illustrate each target word; and (6) Free downloadable supplemental audio recordings of target word lists and stories to aid in listening and pronunciation.

    "Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences is a 2006 book by author Kitty Burns Florey about the history and art of sentence diagramming. Florey learned to diagram sentences as a Catholic school student at St. John the Baptist Academy in Syracuse, New York. Diagramming sentences is useful, Florey says, because it teaches us to "focus on the structures and patterns of language, and this can help us appreciate it as more than just a vehicle for expressing minimal ideas". Florey said in a 2012 essay "Taming Sentences":When we unscrew a sentence, figure out what makes it tick and reassemble it, we interact with our old familiar language differently, more deeply, responding to the way its individual components fit together. Once we understand how sentences work (what's going on? what action is taking place? who is doing it and to whom is it being done?), it's harder to write an incorrect one.Sentence diagramming was introduced by Brainerd Kellogg and Alonzo Reid, professors at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, in their book History of English published in 1877."Keywords: KITTY BURNS FLOREY SISTER BERNADETTE DOG BARKING DIAGRAMMING SENTENCES ENGLISH GRAMMAR REFERENCE LANGUAGE

    Why do so many swear words involve sex, bodily functions and religion? What are the biological roots of swearing? Why would a democracy deter the use of words for two activities - sex and excretion - that harm no one and are inescapable parts of the human condition?Taboo language enters into a startling array of human concerns from capital crimes in the Bible to the future of electronic media. You'll discover that in Quebecois French the expression 'Tabernacle' is outrageous, that 'scumbag' has a very unsavoury origin and that in a certain Aboriginal language every word is filthy when spoken in front of your mother-in-law.Covering everything from free speech to Tourette's, from pottymouthed celebrities to poetry, this book reveals what swearing tells us about how our minds work. (It's also a bloody good read).

    M. Forster's most celebrated works. Forster explores love among a cast of eccentric characters gathered in an Italian pension and in a corner of Surrey, England. Caught up in a world of social snobbery, Lucy Honeychurch must make a decision that will decide the course of her future: She is forced to choose between convention and passion.

    In his groundbreaking book Choice Words, Peter Johnston demonstrated how the things teachers say (and don't say) have surprising consequences for the literate lives of students. Now, in Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives, Peter shows how the words teachers choose affect the worlds students inhabit in the classroom, and ultimately their futures. He explains how to engage children with more productive talk and to create classrooms that support not only students' intellectual development, but their development as human beings.Grounded in research, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives shows how words can shape students' learning, their sense of self, and their social, emotional and moral development. Make no mistake: words have the power to open minds – or close them.

    Every new reader's brain possesses the extraordinary capacity to rearrange itself beyond its original abilities in order to understand written symbols. But how does the brain learn to read? As world-renowned cognitive neuroscientist and scholar of reading Maryanne Wolf explains in this impassioned book, we taught our brain to read only a few thousand years ago, and in the process changed the intellectual evolution of our species.Wolf tells us that the brain that examined tiny clay tablets in the cuneiform script of the Sumerians is configured differently from the brain that reads alphabets or of one literate in today's technology.There are critical implications to such an evolving brain. Just as writing reduced the need for memory, the proliferation of information and the particular requirements of digital culture may short-circuit some of written language's unique contributions—with potentially profound consequences for our future.Turning her attention to the development of the individual reading brain, Wolf draws on her expertise in dyslexia to investigate what happens when the brain finds it difficult to read. Interweaving her vast knowledge of neuroscience, psychology, literature, and linguistics, Wolf takes the reader from the brains of a pre-literate Homer to a literacy-ambivalent Plato, from an infant listening to Goodnight Moon to an expert reader of Proust, and finally to an often misunderstood child with dyslexia whose gifts may be as real as the challenges he or she faces.As we come to appreciate how the evolution and development of reading have changed the very arrangement of our brain and our intellectual life, we begin to realize with ever greater comprehension that we truly are what we read. Ambitious, provocative, and rich with examples, Proust and the Squid celebrates reading, one of the single most remarkable inventions in history. Once embarked on this magnificent story of the reading brain, you will never again take for granted your ability to absorb the written word.

    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.

    Now Karen Elizabeth Gordon has revised and enlarged her classic handbook with fuller explanations of the rules of punctuation, additional whimsical graphics, and further character development and drama -- all the while redeeming punctuation from the perils of boredom. For anyone who has despaired of opening a punctuation handbook (but whose sentences despair without one), THE NEW WELL TEMPERED SENTENCE will teach you clearly and simply where to place a comma and how to use an apostrophe. And as you master the elusive slashes, dots, and dashes that give expression to our most perplexing thoughts, you will find yourself in the grip of a bizarre and beguiling comedy of manners. Long-time fans will delight in the further intrigues of cover girl Loona, the duke and duchess, and the mysterious Rosie and Nimrod. The New Well-Tempered Sentence is sure to entertain while teaching you everything you want to know about punctuation. Never before has punctuation been so much fun!

    All chapters in this best-seller have been substantially revised to reflect recent discoveries and new understanding of linguistics and languages.

    It introduces the analysis of the key elements of language--sounds, words, structures and meanings, and provides a solid foundation in all of the essential topics. The third edition has been extensively revised to include new sections on important contemporary issues in language study, including language and culture, African American English, sign language, and slang. A comprehensive glossary provides useful explanations of technical terms, and each chapter contains a range of new study questions and research tasks, with suggested answers.

    Dehaene's research will fascinate not only readers interested in science and culture, but also educators concerned with debates on how we learn to read, and who wrestle with pathologies such as dyslexia. Like Steven Pinker, Dehaene argues that the mind is not a blank slate: Writing systems across all cultures rely on the same brain circuits, and reading is only possible insofar as it fits within the limits of a primate brain. Setting cutting-edge science in the context of cultural debate, Reading in the Brain is an unparalleled guide to a uniquely human ability.

    Preserving the general structure of the author's important study Language, Meaning and Context (1981), this text has been expanded in scope to introduce several topics that were not previously discussed, and to take account of new developments in linguistic semantics over the past decade.