L. Mencken's book about the English language as spoken in the United States. Mencken was inspired by "the argot of the colored waiters" in Washington, as well as one of his favorite authors, Mark Twain, and his experiences on the streets of Baltimore. In 1902, Mencken remarked on the "queer words which go into the making of 'United States.'" The book was preceded by several columns in The Evening Sun. Mencken eventually asked "Why doesn't some painstaking pundit attempt a grammar of the American language... English, that is, as spoken by the great masses of the plain people of this fair land?" It would appear that he answered his own question. In the tradition of Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary, Mencken wanted to defend "Americanisms" against a steady stream of English critics, who usually isolated Americanisms as borderline barbarous perversions of the mother tongue. Mencken assaulted the prescriptive grammar of these critics and American "schoolmarms", arguing, like Samuel Johnson in the preface to his dictionary, that language evolves independently of textbooks. The book discusses the beginnings of "American" variations from "English", the spread of these variations, American names and slang over the course of its 374 pages. According to Mencken, American English was more colorful, vivid, and creative than its British counterpart. The book sold exceptionally well by Mencken's standards-1400 copies in the first two months. Reviews of the book praised it lavishly, with the exception of one by Mencken's old nemesis, Stuart Sherman. source: Wikipedia

    Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

    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?

    Drawing on a wide range of  great writers, from Philip Roth to Antonin Scalia to Jane Austen, How to Write a Sentence is much more than a writing manual—it is a spirited love letter to the written word, and a key to understanding how great writing works.

    There are very few recent books that tackle the subject, and in this new effort, written with the scholar and orator in mind, Farnsworth collects and discusses the great masters of English prose Lincoln and Churchill, Dickens and Melville, Burke and Paine and, using their own words, proceeds to organize, illustrate, and analyze the most frequently used rhetorical devices with clarity and detail.The way we use our language to convince and cajole is based on timeless principles on repetition and variety, suspense and relief, expectation and satisfaction that have been employed by writers and speakers since the Golden Age of Greece. They can be applied with effect to the construction of simple sentences and paragraphs, or entire compositions. Here, distilled from the best examples in our language, we see those principles in actual use: for the general reader it is an indispensable guide, a highly useful reference, and a rewarding (and even entertaining) source of instruction.

    N. Volosinov's important work, first published in Russian in 1929, had to wait a generation for recognition. This first paperback edition of the English translation will be capital for literary theorists, philosophers, linguists, psychologists, and many others.Volosinov is out to undo the old disciplinary boundaries between linguistics, rhetoric, and poetics in order to construct a new kind of field: semiotics or textual theory. Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik have provided a new preface to discuss Volosinov in relation to the great resurgence of interest in all the writing of the circle of Mikhail Bakhtin.

    There, a bore is "a person who talks when you wish him to listen," and happiness is "an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another." This is the most comprehensive, authoritative edition ever of Ambrose Bierce’s satiric masterpiece. It renders obsolete all other versions that have appeared in the book’s ninety-year history.A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.This new edition is based on David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi’s exhaustive investigation into the book’s writing and publishing history. All of Bierce’s known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a classic that stands alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans and word lovers everywhere.

    History in English Words, his classic historical excursion through the English language, is now back in print after five years.This popular book provides a brief, brilliant history of those who have spoken the Indo-European tongues. It is illustrated throughout by current English words—whose derivation from other languages, whose history in use and changes of meaning—record and unlock the larger history."In our language alone, not to speak of its many companions, the past history of humanity is spread out in an imperishable map, just as the history of the mineral earth lies embedded in the layers of its outer crust.... Language has preserved for us the inner, living history of our soul. It reveals the evolution of consciousness" (Owen Barfield).About the Author:Owen Barfield (1898-1997), British philosopher and critic, has been called the "First and Last Inkling" because of his influential and enduring role in the group known as the Oxford Inklings, which included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. It was Barfield who first advanced the ideas about language, myth, and belief that became identified with the thought and art of the Inklings. He is the author of numerous books, including Poetic Diction; Romanticism Comes of Age; Unancestoral Voice; History, Guilt, and Habit; and Worlds Apart, as well as works of fiction and poetry. His history of the evolution of human consciousness, Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry, achieved a place in the list of the "100 Best Spiritual Books of the Century."

    Making remarkable connections across brain function, myth, and anthropology, Dr. Shlain shows why pre-literate cultures were principally informed by holistic, right-brain modes that venerated the Goddess, images, and feminine values. Writing drove cultures toward linear left-brain thinking and this shift upset the balance between men and women, initiating the decline of the feminine and ushering in patriarchal rule. Examining the cultures of the Israelites, Greeks, Christians, and Muslims, Shlain reinterprets ancient myths and parables in light of his theory. Provocative and inspiring, this book is a paradigm-shattering work that will transform your view of history and the mind.

     Do you ever leave work wondering whether all of the words exchanged between you and your colleagues in emails and meetings actually had any meaning? You spend the day touching base and networking, workshopping and impacting, strategizing and implementing, going forward with your key performance indicators. No wonder you are exhausted when you leave the office! Even as English spreads around the globe, the language itself is shrinking. Our vocabularies are increasingly trimmed of subtlety and obscure words are forbidden unless they qualify as economic or business jargon. The constant pressure in our society to be efficient and productive is working like a noose around the neck of the English language. Don Watson is one of Australia's foremost writers and intellectuals. In Death Sentences, he takes up the fight against the pestilence of bullet points, the scourge of buzzwords, and the dearth of verbs in public discourse. He encourages us to wage war against the personal mission statement and the Powerpoint essay and to take back our language from the corporate wordsmiths and marketeers. BACKCOVER: Praise for Don Watson’s Death Sentences: “Don Watson has written a fine and necessary book. Any citizen who neglects to read it does so at his or her peril.” –Lewis H. Lapham, editor of Harper’s Magazine "[a] marvelous polemic..." —forbes.com “…captures the powerlessness and frustration we feel when confronted by meaningless words delivered with authority.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review “Watson makes an eloquent, elegant, and sometimes scathing case for taking back language from those who would trip it of all color and emotion and, therefore, of all meaning. —Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist) “…many lessons and insights in this book…” —Leigh Buchanan, Harvard Business Review “[Watson is] always clear and precise, even when exposing the verbal pollution that passes for wisdom in the public realm.” –Toronto Star

    Everywhere you turn, publications seem to follow different rules on everything from possessive apostrophes to hyphens to serial commas. Then there are all the gray areas of punctuation--situations the rule books gloss over or never mention at all. At last, help has arrived.This all-in-one reference from grammar columnist June Casagrande covers the basic rules of punctuation plus the finer points not addressed anywhere else, offering clear answers to perplexing questions about semicolons, quotation marks, periods, apostrophes, and more. Better yet, this is the only guide that uses handy icons to show how punctuation rules differ for book, news, academic, and science styles--so you can boldly switch between essays, online newsletters, reports, fiction, and magazine and news articles.Style guides don't cover everything, but never fear! This handbook features rulings from an expert "Punctuation Panel" so you can see how working pros approach sticky situations. And the second half of the book features an alphabetical master list of commonly punctuated terms worth its weight in gold, combining rulings from the major style guides and showing exactly where they differ. With The Best Punctuation Book, Period, you'll be able to handle any punctuation predicament in a flash--and with aplomb.

    David Foster Wallace not only took issue with Taylor's method, which, according to him, scrambled the relations of logic, language, and the physical world, but also noted a semantic trick at the heart of Taylor's argument.Fate, Time, and Language presents Wallace's brilliant critique of Taylor's work. Written long before the publication of his fiction and essays, Wallace's thesis reveals his great skepticism of abstract thinking made to function as a negation of something more genuine and real. He was especially suspicious of certain paradigms of thought-the cerebral aestheticism of modernism, the clever gimmickry of postmodernism-that abandoned "the very old traditional human verities that have to do with spirituality and emotion and community." As Wallace rises to meet the challenge to free will presented by Taylor, we witness the developing perspective of this major novelist, along with his struggle to establish solid logical ground for his convictions. This volume, edited by Steven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert, reproduces Taylor's original article and other works on fatalism cited by Wallace. James Ryerson's introduction connects Wallace's early philosophical work to the themes and explorations of his later fiction, and Jay Garfield supplies a critical biographical epilogue.

    Discussing the joys and problems that face both writer and reader, it is for those who wish to engage the art of letters at its deepest level. "These timeless poems delve into the heart of writing." - Cleveland Plain Dealer Poet

    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.

    An animal's cry, poetry, the medical symptom, media messages, language disorders, architecture, marketing, body language - all these, and more, fall within the sphere of semiotics.Introducing Semiotics outlines the development of sign study from its classical precursors to contemporary post-structuralism. Through Paul Cobley's incisive text and Litza Jansz's brilliant illustrations, it identifies the key semioticians and their work and explains the simple concepts behind difficult terms. For anybody who wishes to know why signs are crucial to human existence and how we can begin to study systems of signification, this book is the place to start. It is the perfect companion volume to Introducing Barthes