Now revised to include new words and updated essays, Keywords focuses on the sociology of language, demonstrating how the key words we use to understand our society take on new meanings and how these changes reflect the political bent and values of society.

    And yet, we sit idly by as words are banned from television and censored in books. We insist that people excise profanity from their vocabularies and we punish children for yelling the very same dirty words that we’ll mutter in relief seconds after they fall asleep. Swearing, it seems, is an intimate part of us that we have decided to selectively deny.That’s a damn shame. Swearing is useful. It can be funny, cathartic, or emotionally arousing. As linguist and cognitive scientist Benjamin K. Bergen shows us, it also opens a new window onto how our brains process language and why languages vary around the world and over time.In this groundbreaking yet ebullient romp through the linguistic muck, Bergen answers intriguing questions: How can patients left otherwise speechless after a stroke still shout Goddamn! when they get upset? When did a cock grow to be more than merely a rooster? Why is crap vulgar when poo is just childish? Do slurs make you treat people differently? Why is the first word that Samoan children say not mommy but eat shit? And why do we extend a middle finger to flip someone the bird?Smart as hell and funny as fuck, What the F is mandatory reading for anyone who wants to know how and why we swear.

     Christopher McKinlay has been featured in Wired Magazine for his groundbreaking analysis of OkCupid. For the first time he’s showing non-experts how to turn Internet dating on its head. This concise guide will show anyone (straight, gay, male or female) the procedure McKinlay used to meet his fiancee and how the same ideas can transform their lives and bring them from browsing to contact. One summer evening while logged into a supercomputer in Colorado waiting for a large computation, McKinlay was killing time on OkC when he was troubled by a problem: what if large groups of people responded to OkCupid’s personality questionnaire in statistically similar ways? He created custom software to scrape data from the site, collecting over 6,000,000 answers to OkC’s “match questions” from more than 20,000 real users. This data made clear he’d been using the site the wrong way. Based on his findings, McKinlay (a mathematics PhD), optimized his own profile. The transformation was profound. He went from showing a “match percentage” of 90% with a few hundred women in the L.A. area to showing 90% or higher with over 30,000 local women. Unsolicited messages from attractive strangers began flooding his inbox. With a foreword by Jon Finkel, McKinlay’s insightful how-to will teach you how to benefit from the buried statistical patterns of online romance.

    The ‘top performing’ schools were designing education in completely different ways from the UK and from each other, and yet, despite their differences, they were all getting top marks.Determined to find answers she couldn’t get from reports and graphs, Lucy set off on a journey around the globe to see these schools and students for herself.Cleverlands is the story of her journey through Finland, Canada, Japan, China and Singapore – five countries regularly at the top of the education charts. She spent three weeks immersed in classrooms in each country – living with teachers, listening to parents, teaching, watching and asking questions.The result is a guided tour of the world’s best educational systems and a reflection on what success in the UK might look like in light of these varying possibilities… not just what our politicians would have us believe.

    Born in Tokyo but also raised and educated in the United States, Minae Mizumura acknowledges the value of a universal language in the pursuit of knowledge, yet also embraces the different ways of understanding offered by multiple tongues. She warns against losing this precious diversity.Universal languages have always played a pivotal role in advancing human societies, Mizumura shows, but in the globalized world of the Internet, English is fast becoming the sole common language of humanity. The process is unstoppable, and striving for total language equality is delusional--and yet, particular kinds of knowledge can be gained only through writings in specific languages.Mizumura calls these writings "texts" and their ultimate form "literature." Only through literature, and more fundamentally through the diverse languages that give birth to a variety of literatures, can we nurture and enrich humanity. Incorporating her own experiences as a writer and a lover of language, and embedding a parallel history of Japanese, Mizumura offers an intimate look at the phenomena of individual and national expression.

    In exploring the public meaning of ingeniously defended private meanings, de Certeau draws brilliantly on an immense theoretical literature in analytic philosophy, linguistics, sociology, semiology, and anthropology--to speak of an apposite use of imaginative literature.

    The gear you select and how you use it can mean big results—or bigger disappointment.FASTER takes a scientific look at triathlon to see what truly makes you faster—and busts the myths and doublespeak that waste your money and race times. In this fascinating exploration of the forces at play in the swim-bike-run sport, astronautical engineer and triathlete Jim Gourley shows where to find free speed, speed on a budget, and the gear upgrades that are worth it.FASTER offers specific, science-based guidance on the fastest techniques and the most effective gear, answering questions like: •    Which wetsuit is best for me? •    What’s the best way to draft a swimmer? •    Should I buy a lighter bike? •    Deep dish or disc wheels? •    Are lighter shoes faster? •    Who’s right about running technique? Gourley reviews published studies in peer-reviewed journals to show what scientists have learned about swim drafting, pacing the bike leg, race strategy for short and long-course racing, and the fastest ways to handle transitions.FASTER will change how you think about your body, your gear, and the world around you. With science on your side, you'll make the smart calls that will make you a better, faster triathlete.

    They have become one of the most influential British rock bands of their generation, sharing with their fans a belief that music can inspire change. Dear Future Historians features front-man Rou Reynolds own song interpretations and social commentary alongside all of their lyrics to date.

    

    Moving away from the Marxist/Freudian approaches that had concerned him earlier, Baudrillard developed in this book a theory of contemporary culture that relies on displacing economic notions of cultural production with notions of cultural expenditure.Baudrillard uses the concepts of the simulacra—the copy without an original—and simulation. These terms are crucial to an understanding of the postmodern, to the extent that they address the concept of mass reproduction and reproduceability that characterizes our electronic media culture.Baudrillard's book represents a unique and original effort to rethink cultural theory from the perspective of a new concept of cultural materialism, one that radically redefines postmodern formulations of the body.Sheila Glaser is an editor at Artforum magazine.

    It explains how it was a premeditated, orchestrated deception, using science to impose a political agenda. It fooled a majority including most scientists. They assumed that other scientists would not produce science for a political agenda. German Physicist and meteorologist Klaus-Eckart Puls finally decided to look for himself. Here is what he discovered. Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data—first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements. To this day I still feel shame that as a scientist I made presentations of their science without first checking it.…scientifically it is sheer absurdity to think we can get a nice climate by turning a CO2 adjustment knob. This book uses the same approach used in investigative journalism. It examines the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How.

    Starting with the band's origins in Oxford, journalist Martin Clarke covers the essential points: Radiohead's breakout single "Creep," the pivotal album OK Computer, Thom Yorke's continuing political and artistic evolution, and the band's future. This revised edition includes a close look at how the band escaped the rock straightjacket with Kid A and Amnesiac , as well as their most recent album, Hail to the Thief . Clark also offers an in-depth examination of the outspoken, mysterious Yorke, offering insight into the personal demons the vocalist has battled throughout his career as Radiohead's frontman. An incisive look at one of the world's most beloved, followed musical acts, Radiohead: Hysterical and Useless provides stimulating coverage of a provocative group.

    Here Benjamin evolves a theory of language as the medium of all creation, discusses theater and surrealism, reminisces about Berlin in the 1920s, recalls conversations with Bertolt Brecht, and provides travelogues of various cities, including Moscow under Stalin. He moves seamlessly from literary criticism to autobiography to philosophical-theological speculations, cementing his reputation as one of the greatest and most versatile writers of the twentieth century. Also included is a new preface by Leon Wieseltier that explores Benjamin's continued relevance for our times.

    Forgotten history. Conspiracies. Now you can unlock the mysteries of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol with this definitive and bestselling guide to the facts behind the fiction featuring Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon—from Simon Cox, author of Cracking the Da Vinci Code and Illuminating Angels and Demons.Dan Brown’s thrilling novel The Lost Symbol again features Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, this time in the US racing to uncover clues and crack codes involving secrets that are perpetuated to this day. But how much of the novel is true and what is pure fiction? Simon Cox, bestselling Dan Brown expert offers this definitive guide to all the mysteries featured in The Lost Symbol. Based on extensive research, this A-to-Z guide lists the real people, organizations, and themes featured in Dan Brown’s novel, explains their histories and their meanings, reproduces and analyzes the symbols themselves, and provides insider knowledge gleaned from years of exhaustive study. From the monuments of Washington, DC, to the secrets of Salt Lake City and the hidden enclaves in Langley, Virginia, Cox knows where the facts are hidden about the Freemasons, Albert Pike, the Rosicrucians, the Founding Fathers, and more. This is the only resource you’ll need to understand and enjoy the fascinating and mysterious world of The Lost Symbol.