Book picks similar to
Formulaic Language - Pushing the Boundaries by Alison Wray
language
linguistics
northeast-asia
oral-culture
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
John Koenig - 2021
“ —The Washington Post A truly original book in every sense of the word, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows poetically defines emotions that we all feel but don’t have the words to express—until now. Have you ever wondered about the lives of each person you pass on the street, realizing that everyone is the main character in their own story, each living a life as vivid and complex as your own? That feeling has a name: “sonder.” Or maybe you’ve watched a thunderstorm roll in and felt a primal hunger for disaster, hoping it would shake up your life. That’s called “lachesism.” Or you were looking through old photos and felt a pang of nostalgia for a time you’ve never actually experienced. That’s “anemoia.” If you’ve never heard of these terms before, that’s because they didn’t exist until John Koenig set out to fill the gaps in our language of emotion. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows “creates beautiful new words that we need but do not yet have,” says John Green, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars. By turns poignant, relatable, and mind-bending, the definitions include whimsical etymologies drawn from languages around the world, interspersed with otherworldly collages and lyrical essays that explore forgotten corners of the human condition—from “astrophe,” the longing to explore beyond the planet Earth, to “zenosyne,” the sense that time keeps getting faster. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is for anyone who enjoys a shift in perspective, pondering the ineffable feelings that make up our lives. With a gorgeous package and beautiful illustrations throughout, this is the perfect gift for creatives, word nerds, and human beings everywhere.
The Kingdom of Speech
Tom Wolfe - 2016
The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech—not evolution—is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements.From Alfred Russel Wallace, the Englishman who beat Darwin to the theory of natural selection but later renounced it, and through the controversial work of modern-day anthropologist Daniel Everett, who defies the current wisdom that language is hard-wired in humans, Wolfe examines the solemn, long-faced, laugh-out-loud zig-zags of Darwinism, old and Neo, and finds it irrelevant here in the Kingdom of Speech.
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English
Patricia T. O'Conner - 1996
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.
10 Step Plan to Promote Your Book: Online Book Marketing on Any Budget
Scott Hughes - 2015
The plan works on any budget. It works for the wealthy busy professional as well as for the struggling artist short on funding. About the Author ~ As the founder of Online Book Club, Scott Hughes has spent over a decade in this new industry, working with thousands of authors to advertise books online. Scott Hughes has worked in the ebook marketing industry before the Kindle ever existed!
West Is San Francisco
Lauren Sapala - 2019
But what she can’t run from is her present reality as an alcoholic on the downward spiral, and the strong future possibility that she might die in the gutter. So, she quits drinking and resolves to live a new life, determined to be a better person and resist the siren song of addiction, staying a few steps ahead of her demons all the while. But then Leah takes a job at a P.I. Firm and her resolve is thoroughly tested. Instead of alcohol, she becomes addicted to work and the nonstop demands of the agency. In a desperate attempt to break the cycle, she answers a mysterious online ad calling for writers and ends up working as an assistant to serial entrepreneur Scarlet Monroe, a woman who seems almost too good to be true, and like everything Leah has always wanted to be. But when Leah is hired as Scarlet’s personal assistant and gets in deeper with Scarlet and her cult-like company, the demons from her past come alive again, and this time they refuse to go away. The sequel to Between the Shadow and Lo and the second installment in the West Coast Trilogy, West Is San Francisco is a surreal ride through the strange secrets—and intangible magic—of San Francisco.
Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences
Kitty Burns Florey - 2006
"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
Linguistics for Everyone: An Introduction
Kristin Denham - 2009
This book is for students with majors in English, linguistics, secondary education, foreign languages, communication sciences, and other disciplines that need a basic introduction to linguistics.
The Painted Word: A Treasure Chest of Remarkable Words and Their Origins
Phil Cousineau - 2012
He then fills it in with a tint of etymology and a smattering of quotes that show how the word is used, ending with a list of companion words. The words themselves range from commonplace — like biscuit, a twice-baked cake for Roman soldiers — to loanwords including chaparral, from the Basque shepherds who came to the American West; words from myths, such as hector; metamorphosis words, like silly, which evolved holy to goofy in a mere thousand years; and words well worthy of revival, such as carrytale, a wandering storyteller. Whether old-fangled or brand new, all the words included in The Painted Word possess an ineffable quality that makes them luminous.“A mytagogue, a carrytale and a thaumaturge, Cousineau makes us Argus-eyed to the ubuntu of the aprocryphal and Gemutlichkeit it provides, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you definitely need this book.” -Lemony Snicket
The Superior Person's Book of Words
Peter Bowler - 1979
Peter Bowler will teach you the practical riches of saying it well with good words, neglected words, and precise words for vocabular exultation!
Thereby Hangs a Tale
Charles Earle Funk - 1950
Dictionaries don’t have the space to tell us all the mysteries but now Dr. Funk, with humor and insight, tells us the strange and intriguing stories of hundreds of words and how they came to be a part of our language.
Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style
Benjamin Dreyer - 2019
L. Doctorow, and Frank Rich, into a useful guide not just for writers but for everyone who wants to put their best foot forward in writing prose. Dreyer offers lessons on the ins and outs of punctuation and grammar, including how to navigate the words he calls "the confusables," like tricky homophones; the myriad ways to use (and misuse) a comma; and how to recognize--though not necessarily do away with--the passive voice. (Hint: If you can plausibly add "by zombies" to the end of a sentence, it's passive.) People are sharing their writing more than ever--on blogs, on Twitter--and this book lays out, clearly and comprehensibly, everything writers can do to keep readers focused on the real reason writers write: to communicate their ideas clearly and effectively. Chock-full of advice, insider wisdom, and fun facts on the rules (and nonrules) of the English language, this book will prove invaluable to everyone who wants to shore up their writing skills, mandatory for people who spend their time editing and shaping other people's prose, and--perhaps best of all--an utter treat for anyone who simply revels in language.
Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic
Elizabeth Little - 2007
Little’s exploration of “word travel” includes:• Shona, a language lacking distinct words for “blue” or “green”• Why Icelandic speakers must decide if the numbers 1-4 are plural• Which language is the only one lacking verbs• Just what, exactly, the Swedish names of IKEA products meanFully illustrated with hilarious sidebars, Biting The Wax Tadpole also addresses classic cases of mistranslation. For example, when Chinese shopkeepers tried to find a phonetic written equivalent of Coca-Cola, one set of characters they chose were pronounced “ke-kou ke-la.” It sounded right, but it translated literally as “bite the wax tadpole.” Not quite what Coke had in mind, but in this off-kilter ode to the words of the world, it’s just another example of language taking you someplace interesting.
Fucking Apostrophes
Simon Griffin - 2015
The rules about how to use them are complicated, and have evolved haphazardly. Originally written as advice by a copywriter for designers – wont to insert and remove apostrophes at will, for visual effect – this is a light-hearted pocket-sized guide to getting the things right.Simon Griffin lets off steam so that we don’t have to, showing precisely why ‘Rhianna and Jennifer’s photos were all over the internet’ is quite different to ‘Rhianna’s and Jennifer’s photos’ or what words apostrophes are replacing in sentences such as ‘He’d like you to buy him some cocaine’, or ‘They’ve got it all on camera.’Elegantly produced, this is the perfect gift for any pedant, as well as an indispensable guide in all our moments of grammar-related frustration.
Other-Wordly: Words Both Strange and Lovely from Around the World
Yee-Lum Mak - 2016
Learn terms for the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees, for dancing awkwardly but with relish, and for the look shared by two people who each wish the other would speak first. Other-Wordly is an irresistible gift for lovers of words and those lost for words alike.
1001 Most Useful Spanish Words
Seymour Resnick - 1996
Included are definitions of common Spanish words arranged by such categories as foods, numbers, days of the week, months, colors, the seasons, and family. The heart of the book is a dictionary, from a to zapato, in which each word is used in a Spanish sentence (with English translation) demonstrating its proper use. This useful learning and teaching tool was compiled by Seymour Resnick, a noted language teacher. It belongs at the fingertips of anyone studying the Spanish language.