Ong offers fascinating insights into oral genres across the globe and through time, and examines the rise of abstract philosophical and scientific thinking. He considers the impact of orality-literacy studies not only on literary criticism and theory but on our very understanding of what it is to be a human being, conscious of self and other.This is a book no reader, writer or speaker should be without.

    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.

    Ranging through history, literature, folklore, linguistics, and sociology, this is a breezy, straightforward primer of surprising breadth.

    Its structure has become popular in other languages and today it is probably the best know form of poetry worldwide.There are few rules to haiku, but they are strict: 17 phonetic sounds, a sense of cutting images or ideas, and a reference to a season. From those restrictions, poets have written about many things, from the year’s first blossom to aging, from mosquitoes humming to insects singing, from catching one’s shadow to crossing a stream in the summer.Haiku features 90 classic poems from four poets: Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa and Masaoka Shiki which range across more than 200 years of Japanese poetry.In Haiku, each poem is presented in Japanese script, along with romanized Japanese (romaji) and an English translation. Beautifully produced in traditional Chinese binding and with a timeless design, Haiku is an expert introduction and celebration of one of the most beautiful and accessible forms of poetry in the world.

    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.

    With humor and insight, Melissa Mohr takes readers on a journey to discover how "swearing" has come to include both testifying with your hand on the Bible and calling someone a *#$&!* when they cut you off on the highway. She explores obscenities in ancient Rome and unearths the history of religious oaths in the Middle Ages, when swearing (or not swearing) an oath was often a matter of life and death. Holy Sh*t also explains the advancement of civility and corresponding censorship of language in the 18th century, considers the rise of racial slurs after World War II, examines the physiological effects of swearing and answers a question that preoccupies the FCC, the US Senate, and anyone who has recently overheard little kids at a playground: are we swearing more now than people did in the past?A gem of lexicography and cultural history, Holy Sh*t is a serious exploration of obscenity.

    Now at last here's a feast for them and other verbivores. Eat up!-Barbara WallraffSenior Editor at The Atlantic Monthly and author of Word CourtPraise for A Word a Day"AWADies will be familiar with Anu Garg's refreshing approach to words: words are fun and they have fascinating histories. The people who use them have curious stories to tell too, and this collection incorporates some of the correspondence received by the editors at the AWAD site, from advice on how to outsmart your opponent in a duel (or even a truel) to a cluster of your favorite mondegreens."-John Simpson, Chief Editor, Oxford English Dictionary"A banquet of words! Feast and be nourished!"-Richard Lederer, author of The Miracle of LanguageWritten by the founder of the wildly popular A Word A Day Web site (www.wordsmith.org), this collection of unusual, obscure, and exotic English words will delight writers, scholars, crossword puzzlers, and word buffs of every ilk. The words are grouped in intriguing categories that range from "Portmanteaux" to "Words That Make the Spell-Checker Ineffective." each entry includes a concise definition, etymology, and usage example-and many feature fascinating and hilarious commentaries by A Word A Day subscribers and the authors.

    The only comprehensive study that examines all areas of Basho's work, including haibun, renku and critical commentaries.

    The lifetime work of Professor Alexander Schmidt of Königsberg, this book has long been the indispensable companion for every person seriously interested in Shakespeare, Renaissance poetry and prose of any sort, or English literature. It is really two important books in one.Schmidt’s set contains every single word that Shakespeare used, not simply words that have changed their meaning since the seventeenth century, but every word in all the accepted plays and the poems. Covering both quartos and folios, it carefully distinguishes between shades of meaning for each word and provides exact definitions, plus governing phrases and locations, down to the numbered line of the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare. There is no other word dictionary comparable to this work.Even more useful to the general reader, however, is the incredible wealth of exact quotations. Arranged under the words of the quotation itself (hence no need to consult confusing subject classifications) are more than 50,000 exact quotations. Each is precisely located, so that you can easily refer back to the plays or poems themselves, if you wish context.Other features helpful to the scholar are appendixes on basic grammatical observations, a glossary of provincialisms, a list of words and sentences taken from foreign languages, a list of words that form the latter part of word-combinations. This third edition features a supplement with new findings.

    Readers will learn essential skills like how to haggle, exchange currencies, cross the street, decipher menus, say useful phrases in Chinese, and more. The guide comes complete with survival tips on etiquette, a map, and resource lists. Don’t leave home for China without it!Veteran travelers Qin and Larry Herzberg are Chinese language and culture professors at Calvin College in Michigan.

    Qù tama, zánmen chuqù feng ba. •Who farted? Shéi fàng de pì?•Wanna try doggy-style? Yàobù zánliar shìshì gou cào shì?•Son of a bitch!Gouniángyang de!•I’m getting smashed. Wo ganjué heduo le.•I can’t eat this shit! Wo chi bù xià qù!

    Editor Faubion Bowers provides a foreword and many informative notes to the poems.

    Originally paired with a major PBS miniseries, this book presents a stimulating and comprehensive record of spoken and written English—from its Anglo-Saxon origins some two thousand years ago to the present day, when English is the dominant language of commerce and culture with more than one billion English speakers around the world. From Cockney, Scouse, and Scots to Gulla, Singlish, Franglais, and the latest African American slang, this sweeping history of the English language is the essential introduction for anyone who wants to know more about our common tongue.

    Some evidence of shelf wear on book cover, otherwise in good shape.

    The Skin That We Speak takes the discussion of language in the classroom beyond the highly charged war of idioms and presents today's teachers with a thoughtful exploration of the varieties of English that we speak, in what Black Issues Book Review calls "an essential text." Edited by bestselling author Lisa Delpit and education professor Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, the book includes an extended new piece by Delpit herself, as well as groundbreaking work by Herbert Kohl, Gloria Ladson-Billings, and Victoria Purcell-Gates, as well as classic texts by Geneva Smitherman and Asa Hilliard. At a time when children are written off in our schools because they do not speak formal English, and when the class- and race-biased language used to describe those children determines their fate, The Skin That We Speak offers a cutting-edge look at crucial educational issues.