When standing before an ancient tablet in a museum or visiting an Egyptian monument, we marvel at this unique writing and puzzle over its meaning. Now, with the help of Egyptologists Mark Collier and Bill Manley, museum-goers, tourists, and armchair travelers alike can gain a basic knowledge of the language and culture of ancient Egypt. Collier and Manley's novel approach is informed by years of experience teaching Egyptian hieroglyphs to non-specialists. Using attractive drawings of actual inscriptions displayed in the British Museum, they concentrate on the kind of hieroglyphs readers might encounter in other collections, especially funerary writings and tomb scenes. Each chapter introduces a new aspect of hieroglyphic script or Middle Egyptian grammar and encourages acquisition of reading skills with practical exercises. The texts offer insights into the daily experiences of their ancient authors and touch on topics ranging from pharaonic administration to family life to the Egyptian way of death. With this book as a guide, one can enjoy a whole new experience in understanding Egyptian art and artifacts around the world.

    The main theoretical and technical concepts of historical linguistics are also explained. Charles Barber uses familiar texts, including the English of King Alfred, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Addison, to illustrate the state of the English language through time. This is a fascinating book for anyone with an interest in language.

    Some of the most prominent professionals in TV broadcasting and at major newspapers and magazines-people who really should know better-are guilty of making all-too-common grammatical errors. In this delightfully amusing, clever guide, Thomas Parrish points out real-life grammar gaffes from top-notch publications such as the New York Times and the New Yorker to illustrate just how widespread these errors are. With red pen in hand, Parrish's fictional friend the Grouchy Grammarian leads the charge, examining the forty-seven most common mistakes in English and imparting the basics of good grammar with a charming mixture of fussiness and common sense. All of which makes The Grouchy Grammarian the most entertaining, accessible how-not-to guide you'll ever read.

    Bourdieu develops a forceful critique of traditional approaches to language, including the linguistic theories of Saussure and Chomsky and the theory of speech-acts elaborated by Austin and others. He argues that language should be viewed not only as a means of communication but also as a medium of power through which individuals pursue their own interests and display their practical competence.Drawing on the concepts that are part of his distinctive theoretical approach, Bourdieu maintains that linguistic utterances or expressions can be understood as the product of the relation between a "linguistic market" and a "linguistic habitus." When individuals use language in particular ways, they deploy their accumulated linguistic resources and implicitly adapt their words to the demands of the social field or market that is their audience. Hence every linguistic interaction, however personal or insignificant it may seem, bears the traces of the social structure that it both expresses and helps to reproduce.Bourdieu's account sheds fresh light on the ways in which linguistic usage varies according to considerations such as class and gender. It also opens up a new approach to the ways in which language is used in the domain of politics. For politics is, among other things, the arena in which words are deeds and the symbolic character of power is at stake.This volume, by one of the leading social thinkers in the world today, represents a major contribution to the study of language and power. It will be of interest to students throughout the social sciences and humanities, especially in sociology, politics, anthropology, linguistics, and literature.

    Although the structure of the parent volume has been preserved so that reference to it can easily be made, this grammar has been especially written to take into account the needs of advanced students of grammar in colleges and universities.

    As the acclaimed translator Edith Grossman writes in her introduction, “My intention is to stimulate a new consideration of an area of literature that is too often ignored, misunderstood, or misrepresented.”For Grossman, translation has a transcendent importance: “Translation not only plays its important traditional role as the means that allows us access to literature originally written in one of the countless languages we cannot read, but it also represents a concrete literary presence with the crucial capacity to ease and make more meaningful our relationships to those with whom we may not have had a connection before. Translation always helps us to know, to see from a different angle, to attribute new value to what once may have been unfamiliar. As nations and as individuals, we have a critical need for that kind of understanding and insight. The alternative is unthinkable.”Throughout the four chapters of this bracing volume, Grossman’s belief in the crucial significance of the translator’s work, as well as her rare ability to explain the intellectual sphere that she inhabits as interpreter of the original text, inspires and provokes the reader to engage with translation in an entirely new way.

    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.

    In Quirkology, he navigates the backwaters of human behavior, discovering the tell-tale signs that give away a liar, the secret science behind speed-dating and personal ads, and what a person's sense of humor reveals about the innermost workings of their mind- all along paying tribute to others who have carried out similarly weird and wonderful work. Wiseman's research has involved secretly observing people as they go about their daily business, conducting unusual experiments in art exhibitions and music concerts, and even staging fake seances in allegedly haunted buildings. With thousands of research subjects from all over the world, including enamored couples, unwitting pedestrians, and guileless dinner guests, Wiseman presents a fun, clever, and unexpected picture of the human mind.

    If reason is so useful, why didn't it also evolve in other animals? If reason is that reliable, why do we produce so much thoroughly reasoned nonsense? In their groundbreaking account of the evolution and workings of reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber set out to solve this double enigma. Reason, they argue with a compelling mix of real-life and experimental evidence, is not geared to solitary use, to arriving at better beliefs and decisions on our own. What reason does, rather, is help us justify our beliefs and actions to others, convince them through argumentation, and evaluate the justifications and arguments that others address to us.In other words, reason helps humans better exploit their uniquely rich social environment. This interactionist interpretation explains why reason may have evolved and how it fits with other cognitive mechanisms. It makes sense of strengths and weaknesses that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists--why reason is biased in favor of what we already believe, why it may lead to terrible ideas and yet is indispensable to spreading good ones.Ambitious, provocative, and entertaining, The Enigma of Reason will spark debate among psychologists and philosophers, and make many reasonable people rethink their own thinking.

    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.

    Compiled by an international team of experts, each entry is given its complete range of interpretations - sexual and spiritual, official and subversive, cultural and religious - to bring meaning and insight to the symbol.

    It's a strange language, a little like English. Without it, how would our intrepid journalists be able to describe a world in which innocent bystanders look on in horror, where tots in peril are saved by have-a-go heroes, and where troubled stars lash out in foul-mouthed tirades?Robert Hutton has been working around native journalese speakers for two decades, living as one of them and learning their ways, and now he has made their secrets available to the public for the first time. When he first began collecting examples online, he provoked a 'Twitter storm', and was 'left reeling' by the 'scores' of examples that 'flooded in'. He realized that phrases which started as shorthand to help readers have become a dialect that is often meaningless or vacuous to non-journalese speakers.In a courageous attempt both to wean journalists off their journalese habit, and provide elucidation for the rest of us, Romps, Tots and Boffins catalogues the highs and lows of this strange language, celebrating the best examples ('test-tube baby', 'mad cow disease'), marvelling at the quirky ('boffins', 'frogmen') and condemning the worst ('rant', 'snub', 'sirs'). It's a 'must-read' 'page-turner' that may 'cause a stir', 'fuel controversy', or even 'spark' 'tough new rules' in newsrooms.Shortlisted for the Political Humour Book of the Year at the PaddyPower Political Book Awards 2014 "great joy from Robert Hutton's Romps, Tots and Boffins. Never has the weird language of headlines been so wittily defined."--Libby Purves, 'books of the year', The Times"Robert Hutton...has set himself up as the Dr Johnson of this strange, widely read, hardly spoken, language."--Matthew Engel, Financial Times"I'm loving a little book just out by my fellow political journalist Rob Hutton. It's called Romps, Tots and Boffins: The Strange Language of News but is so much more than a hilarious compendium of the ghastly cliché to which our trade is prone. "--Matthew Parris, The Times"An essential guide to finding out what you are reading about. Some people may dismiss this as a 'loo book' but, actually, it's so much more."--Ann Treneman, The Times"A right romp"--Paul Dietrich, The Metro"A fascinating code-breaker of the cliches, inanities and banalities which fill our newspapers. Or, if you prefer, 'News Secrets Revealed Leaving Bosses Shamefaced'. I'm not sure I dare write another word."--Nick Robinson"Finally, I understand what my fellow journalists are writing about."--Simon Hoggart"Long journey to Lib Dem Conference enlivened by Robert Hutton's journalese book, Romps, Tots + Boffins - hilarious, wonderful, + very true - a mini classic"--Andrew Sparrow, Guardian Politics blogger"Very funny new book by Robert Hutton - "Romps, Tots + Boffins: the strange language of news" - a must-read page-turner"--Iain Martin, former editor of the Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday"For readers, it promises to explain what journalists really mean. And for journalists, it also provides a guide to some of the hackneyed, arcane and clichéd phrases that are probably best avoided."--Axegrinder, Press Gazette"an amusing dictionary of arcane hack-speak"--Michael Deacon, The Telegraph"The world of journalism was rocked to its foundations last night as a top newsman claimed to have discovered the secret of 'journalese'." --John Rentoul, The Independent

    The co mpanion will interest tourists, students and business travel lers to Japan. '

    The introduction file provides an overview of the subfield of linguistics to be studied, as well as the specific topics to be discussed. To make the book more interesting and to help students better understand the content, this new edition is enriched with visual illustrations such as cartoons, drawings, real life pictures, and schematic representation of examples, in addition to the figures and charts in the past editions. New exercises and suggested further readings are added in many chapters. Answers to the exercises are available at the back of the book and on-line for teachers and students.

    It includes some discussion of word usage, citing examples and characteristic phrases. Generally speaking, only words used by late writers and scientific terms have been omitted fromthe full lexicon. From Homer downwards, to the close of Attic Greek, care has been taken to include all words, as well as those used by Aristotle, Plutarch in his Lives, Polybius, Strabo, Lucian, and the writers of the New Testament.