However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.

    His even younger enlisted Marines were learning to use an untested weapon, the M4A2 “Sherman” medium tank. His sole combat veteran was the company bugler, who had salvaged his dress cap and battered horn from a sinking aircraft carrier. Just six months later, the company would be thrown into one of the ghastliest battles of World War II.   On November 20, 1943 the 2nd Marine Division launched the first amphibious assault of the Pacific War, directly into the teeth of powerful Japanese defenses on Tarawa. In that blood-soaked invasion, a single company of Sherman tanks, of which only two survived, played a pivotal role in turning the tide from looming disaster to legendary victory. In this unique study, Oscar E. Gilbert and Romain V. Cansiere use official documents, memoirs, and interviews with veterans, as well as personal and aerial photographs, to follow Charlie Company from its formation, and trace the movement, action—and loss—of individual tanks in this horrific 4-day struggle.   The authors follow the company from training through the brutal 76-hour struggle for Tarawa. Survivor accounts and air-photo analyses document the movements—and destruction—of the company’s individual tanks. It is a story of escapes from drowning tanks, and even more harrowing extrications from tanks knocked out behind Japanese lines. It is a story of men doing whatever needed to be done, from burying the dead to hand-carrying heavy cannon ammunition forward under fire. It is the story of how the two surviving tanks and their crews expanded a perilously thin beachhead and cleared the way for critical reinforcements to come ashore. But most of all, it is a story of how a few unsung Marines helped turn near disaster into epic victory.

    Landmarks is about the power of language to shape our sense of place. It is a field guide to the literature of nature, and a glossary containing thousands of remarkable words used in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to describe land, nature and weather. Travelling from Cumbria to the Cairngorms, and exploring the landscapes of Roger Deakin, J. A. Baker, Nan Shepherd and others, Robert Macfarlane shows that language, well used, is a keen way of knowing landscape, and a vital means of coming to love it.

    Did you know that the Japanese language has a word to express the way sunlight filters through the leaves of trees? Or that there’s a Finnish word for the distance a reindeer can travel before needing to rest? Lost in Translation brings to life more than fifty words that don’t have direct English translations with charming illustrations of their tender, poignant, and humorous definitions. Often these words provide insight into the cultures they come from, such as the Brazilian Portuguese word for running your fingers through a lover’s hair, the Italian word for being moved to tears by a story, or the Swedish word for a third cup of coffee. In this clever and beautifully rendered exploration of the subtleties of communication, you’ll find new ways to express yourself while getting lost in the artistry of imperfect translation.

    and Canadian universities for English proficiency. It includes real TOEFL questions for practice, as well as explanations of every section of the test and information on what is expected for every speaking and writing task. You will learn how to construct a good answer and how to integrate speaking, listening, and writing skills to demonstrate college-level English proficiency. Inside you'll find: 600 real TOEFL questions from the test-makers Online access to authentic TOEFL iBT practice tests Strategies for success

    And every Star Trek fan knows about Klingon, which was nothing more than a television show's attempt to create a tough-sounding language befitting a warrior race with ridged foreheads. But few people have heard of Babm, Blissymbolics, and the nearly nine hundred other invented languages that represent the hard work, high hopes, and full-blown delusions of so many misguided souls over the centuries. In In The Land of Invented Languages, author Arika Okrent tells the fascinating and highly entertaining history of man's enduring quest to build a better language. Peopled with charming eccentrics and exasperating megalomaniacs, the land of invented languages is a place where you can recite the Lord's Prayer in John Wilkins's Philosophical Language, say your wedding vows in Loglan, and read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Lojban. A truly original new addition to the booming category of language books, In The Land of Invented Languages will be a must-have on the shelves of all word freaks, grammar geeks, and plain old language lovers.

    Eponymous, adj. Giving one's name to a person, place, or thing.Anonymous, adj. Anonymous.Anonyponymous, adj. Anonymous and eponymous.The Earl of Sandwich, fond of salted beef and paired slices of toast, found a novel way to eat them all together. Etienne de Silhouette, a former French finance minister, was so notoriously cheap that his name became a byword for chintzy practices—such as substituting a darkened outline for a proper painted portrait. Both bequeathed their names to the language, but neither man is remembered.In this clever and funny book, John Bemelmans Marciano illuminates the lives of these anonyponymous persons. A kind of encyclopedia of linguistic biographies, the book is arranged alphabetically, giving the stories of everyone from Abu "algorithm" Al-Khwarizmi to Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Along with them you'll find the likes of Harry Shrapnel, Joseph-Ignace Guillotine, and many other people whose vernacular legacies have long outlived their memory.Accented by amusing line portraits and short etymological essays on subjects like "superhero eponyms," Anonyponymous is both a compendium of trivia and a window into the fascinating world of etymology. Carefully curated and unfailingly witty, this book is both a fantastic gift for language lovers and a true pleasure to read.

    Throughout, the emphasis is on promoting a plain English style. This little book can help you communicate more effectively by showing you how to enliven your sentences.

    aIam reading the OED so you donat have to. If you are interested in vocabulary that is both spectacularly useful and beautifully useless, read on...a So reports Ammon Shea, the tireless, word-obsessed, and more than slightly masochistic author of Reading the OED, The word loveras Mount Everest, the OED has enthralled logophiles since its initial publication 80 years ago. Weighing in at 137 pounds, it is the dictionary to end all dictionaries. In 26 chapters filled with sharp wit, sheer delight, and a documentarianas keen eye, Shea shares his year inside the OED, delivering a hair-pulling, eye-crossing account of reading every word, and revealing the most obscure, hilarious, and wonderful gems he discovers along the way.

    Newly recorded colloquial audio and video materials also accompany each lesson and continue the story of Maha and Khalid and their travels to Cairo with brief explanatory vocabulary and notes provided in the text. The appendices include grammatical reference charts, an Arabic-English glossary, and a grammar index. The materials cover approximately 150 contact hours of instruction, and students who complete Part Two should reach advanced proficiency.Each lesson in Part Two centers on a text that deals with a social, historical, literary, or cultural issue. In addition to the main reading text, students will also find additional authentic texts for reading and listening comprehension, vocabulary and grammar exercises, close listening and speaking activities, and cultural background for the reading.The revised and repackaged Part Two has been restructured to reflect pedagogical developments over the last eight years, updated with new authentic reading and listening texts, and expanded with new video materials. In addition to the speaking, listening, and writing skills emphasized throughout each lesson, more time and emphasis is placed on activating vocabulary and structure with new activities for inside and outside the classroom.FEATURES: - Provides basic texts of printed media to help students connect the written and aural/oral aspects of Arabic - Features intensive reading that is focused on grammar and pronunciation - Contains substantial amounts of drills and exercises to help students memorize and gain active control of an expanded vocabulary - Explores the root and pattern system of Arabic grammar and complex sentence structure using vocabulary, complex texts, and translation exercises - Develops writing skills at the paragraph level to encourage synthesis of vocabulary and grammar - Provides explicit instructions to students and instructors on drills and activities, including recommendations on appropriate exercises for inside and outside the classroom - Interactive DVD contains reading comprehension texts with new material and new listening comprehension material - DVD presents cultural background with illustrations and continues the story of Maha and Khalid using both Egyptian Colloquial Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic

    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.

    David Wilton debunks the most persistently wrong word histories, and gives, to the best of our actual knowledge, the real stories behind these perennially mis-etymologized words. In addition, he explains why these wrong stories are created, disseminated, and persist, even after being corrected time and time again. What makes us cling to these stories, when the truth behind these words and phrases is available, for the most part, at any library or on the Internet? Arranged by chapters, this book avoids a dry A-Z format. Chapters separate misetymologies by kind, including The Perils of Political Correctness (picnics have nothing to do with lynchings), Posh, Phat Pommies (the problems of bacronyming--the desire to make every word into an acronym), and CANOE (which stands for the Conspiracy to Attribute Nautical Origins to Everything). Word Myths corrects long-held and far-flung examples of wrong etymologies, without taking the fun out of etymology itself. It's the best of both worlds: not only do you learn the many wrong stories behind these words, you also learn why and how they are created--and what the real story is.

    A newly revised and updated French dictionary offers more than 130,000 contemporary references and 215,000 translations, along with thousands of idiomatic phrases for the French business traveler, tourist, or student.

    There are penetrating insights into how different business cultures accord status, structure their organisations and view the role of leader, alongside invaluable advice on global negotiation, sales and marketing. The book ranges from differences in etiquette and body language to new thinking in the areas of international management and team-building in Europe and the USA, as well as covering challenging new geographical ground in Russia, China and the Far East.

    Full of surprises and honed in Nadeau and Barlow's trademark style, combining personal anecdote, reflections, and deep research, The Story of Spanish is the first full biography of a language that shaped the world we know, and the only global language with two names—Spanish and Castilian.The story starts when the ancient Phoenicians set their sights on "The Land of the Rabbits," Spain's original name, which the Romans pronounced as Hispania. The Spanish language would pick up bits of Germanic culture, a lot of Arabic, and even some French on its way to taking modern form just as it was about to colonize a New World. Through characters like Queen Isabella, Christopher Columbus, Cervantes, and Goya, The Story of Spanish shows how Spain's Golden Age, the Mexican Miracle, and the Latin American Boom helped shape the destiny of the language. Other, more somber episodes, also contributed, like the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion of Spain's Jews, the destruction of native cultures, the political instability in Latin America, and the dictatorship of Franco.The Story of Spanish shows there is much more to Spanish than tacos, flamenco, and bullfighting. It explains how the United States developed its Hispanic personality from the time of the Spanish conquistadors to Latin American immigration and telenovelas. It also makes clear how fundamentally Spanish many American cultural artifacts and customs actually are, including the dollar sign, barbecues, ranching, and cowboy culture. The authors give us a passionate and intriguing chronicle of a vibrant language that thrived through conquests and setbacks to become the tongue of Pedro Almodóvar and Gabriel García Márquez, of tango and ballroom dancing, of millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of people throughout the world.