During a nine-inning game, more than 1,000 silent instructions are given-from catcher to pitcher, coach to batter, fielder to fielder, umpire to umpire-and without this speechless communication the game would simply not be the same. Baseball historian Paul Dickson examines for the first time the rich legacy of baseball's hidden language, offering fans everywhere a smorgasbord of history and anecdote.Baseball's tradition of signing grew out of the signal flags used by ships and soldiers' hand signals during battle. They were first used in games during the Civil War, and then professionally by the Cincinnati Red Stockings, in 1869. Seven years later, the Hartford Dark Blues appear to be the first team to steal signs, introducing a larcenous obsession that, as Dickson delightfully chronicles, has given the game some of its most historic-and outlandish-moments.Whether detailing the origins of the hit-and-run, the true story behind the home run that gave "Home Run" Baker his nickname, Bob Feller's sign-stealing telescope, Casey Stengel's improbable method of signaling his bullpen, the impact of sign stealing on the Giants' miraculous comeback in 1951, or the pitches Andy Pettitte tipped off that altered the momentum of the 2001 World Series, Dickson's research is as thorough as his stories are entertaining. A roster of baseball's greatest names and games, past and present, echoes throughout, making The Hidden Language of Baseball a unique window on the history of our national pastime.

    Users will be inspired by the breadth and sweep of Meyerhoff's treatment.' William Labov, University of Pennsylvania, USA'Miriam Meyerhoff s entertaining volume revels in the diversity that is the cornerstone of sociolinguistics she takes us to every continent to provide contemporary, refreshing and engaging examples of the key concepts of the discipline, and does so in a well-paced and readable style. The book is authoritative yet open-minded, innovative yet touches all the bases that need to be touched. Most of all, it embodies a passion for sociolinguistics that I hope many readers will embrace.' David Britain, University of Essex, UKThis key text provides a solid, up-to-date appreciation of the interdisciplinary nature of the field. It covers foundation issues, recent advances and current debates presenting familiar or classic data in new ways, and supplementing the familiar with fresh examples from a wide range of languages and social settings. It clearly explains the patterns and systems that underlie language variation in use, as well as the ways in which alternations between different language varieties index personal style, social power and national identity.Individual chapters cover:social dialects and individual style language attitudes politeness multilingualism and language choice real time and apparent time change in language social class, social networks and communities of practice gender language and dialect contact.Each chapter includes exercises that enable readers to engage critically with the text, break out boxes making connections between sociolinguistics and linguistic or social theory, and brief, lively add-ons guaranteed to make the book a memorable and enjoyable read. With a full glossary of terms and suggestions for further reading, this text gives students all the tools they need for an excellent command of sociolinguistics."

     In my case, Italian possesses me.  With Italian racing like blood through my veins, I do indeed see with different eyes, hear with different ears, and drink in the world with all my senses…”A celebration of the language and culture of Italy, La Bella Lingua is the story of how a language shaped a nation, told against the backdrop of one woman’s personal quest to speak fluent Italian.For anyone who has been to Italy, the fantasy of living the Italian life is powerfully seductive. But to truly become Italian, one must learn the language. This is how Dianne Hales began her journey. In La Bella Lingua, she brings the story of her decades-long experience with the “the world’s most loved and lovable language” together with explorations of Italy’s history, literature, art, music, movies, lifestyle and food in a true opera amorosa — a labor of her love of Italy.Throughout  her first excursion in Italy -- with  “non parlo Italiano” as her only Italian phrase -- Dianne delighted in the beauty of what she saw but craved comprehension of what she heard.  And so she chose to inhabit the language.  Over more than twenty-five years she has studied Italian in every way possible through Berlitz,  books, CDs, podcasts, private tutorials and conversation groups, and, most importantly, large blocks of time in Italy.   In the process she found that Italian became not just a passion and a pleasure, but a passport into Italy’s storia and its very soul.  She offers charming insights into what it is that makes Italian the most emotionally expressive of languages, from how the “pronto” (“Ready!”) Italians say when they answer the telephone conveys a sense of something coming alive, to how even ordinary things such as a towel (asciugamano) or handkerchief (fazzoletto) sound better in Italian.  She invites readers to join her as she traces the evolution of Italian in the zesty graffiti on the walls of Pompeii, in Dante’s incandescent cantos and in Boccaccio’s bawdy Decameron.  She portrays how social graces remain woven into the fabric of Italian:  even the chipper “ciao,” which does double duty as “hi” and “bye,” reflects centuries of bella figura.  And she exalts the glories of Italy’s food and its rich and often uproarious gastronomic language:  Italians deftly describe someone uptight as a baccala (dried cod), a busybody who noses into everything as a prezzemolo (parsley), a worthless or banal movie as a polpettone (large meatball). Like Dianne, readers of La Bella Lingua will find themselves innamorata, enchanted, by Italian, fascinated by its saga, tantalized by its adventures, addicted to its sound, and ever eager to spend more time in its company.  Dianne Hales is a widely published journalist and health writer.   She lives with her family in Marin County, California. You can find out more about Dianne at her website (www.becomingitalian.com or labellalingua.org) and on Facebook.

    It offers readers who work through it one possible outline for a grammatical description, with many questions designed to help them address the key topics. Appendices offer guidance on text and elicited data, and on sample reference grammars that readers might wish to consult. This will be a valuable resource to anyone engaged in linguistic fieldwork.

    From 5K to ultramarathon, a power meter can make you faster—but only if you know how to use it. Just viewing your numbers is not enough; you can only become a faster, stronger, more efficient runner when you know what your key numbers mean for your workouts, races, and your season-long training. In Run with Power, TrainingBible coach Jim Vance offers the comprehensive guide you need to find the speed you want.Run with Power demystifies the data and vocabulary so you can find and understand your most important numbers. You’ll set your Running Power Zones so you can begin training using 8 power-based training plans for 5K, 10K, half-marathon, and marathon. Vance shows you how you can compare wattage, heart rate, pace, and perceived exertion to gain the maximum insight into your performances, how you respond to training, and how you can train more effectively. Run with Power will revolutionize how you train and race. Armed with Vance’s guidance, you can train more specifically for races, smooth your running technique, accurately measure your fitness, predict a fitness plateau, monitor injuries, know exactly how hard you’re training, get more fitness from every workout, recover fully, perfect your tapers, warm up without wasting energy, pace your race on any terrain, know when to open the throttle, and create an unprecedented picture of yourself as an athlete.If you’re just glancing at the number on your wrist or computer monitor, you’ve got a lot more speed potential. Knowledge is power and understanding your power numbers can open the gate to new methods and new PRs. Run with Power introduces the use of power meters to the sport of running and will show you how to break through to all-new levels of performance.Key concepts explored in Run with Power: 3/9 Test, 30-minute Time Trial Test, Running Functional Threshold Power (rFTPw), Running Functional Threshold Pace (rFTPa), Averaged and Normalized Power (NP), Intensity Factor (IF), Peak Power, Variability Index, Efficiency Index (EI), speed per watt, Vance’s Power Zones for Running, Training Stress Score (TSS), and Periodization with Power. Includes 6 testing methods and 8 power-based training schedules and workouts for 5K, 10K, half-marathon, and marathon.

    Every day of her high school life was a struggle. She woke up in the morning and the thought of going to school was like an enormous mountain to climb. 'Nothing will ever be as easy as your school years,' well-meaning adults told her, but I knew for my daughter, and for many kids who have struggled as square pegs trying to make themselves round, this was dead wrong. When Lucy Clark's daughter graduated from school a 'failure', she started asking questions about the way we measure success. Why is there so much pressure on kids today? Where does it come from? Most importantly, as we seem to be in the grip of an epidemic of anxiety, how can we reduce that pressure? Beautiful Failures explores, through personal experience and journalistic investigation, a broken education system that fails too many kids and puts terrible pressure on all kids, including those who 'succeed'. It challenges accepted wisdoms about schooling, calls on parents to examine their own expectations, and questions the purpose of education, and indeed the purpose of childhood.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Give yourself a Chinese name, see how to haggle in the shops and test yourself to see if you know the key characters.

    But have you ever stopped to wonder where these peculiar terms actually came from? Most of those found in this book have their origins in the Medieval Books of Courtesy, among the earliest works to be published in this country. Despite originating as a form of social etiquette reserved for the gentry, many of these collective nouns have survived to become a curious feature of today's everyday language. This absorbing book tells the stories of these evocative phrases, many of which have stood the test of time and are still in use today. Entertaining, informative and fascinating, An Unkindness of Ravens is perfect for any history or language buff.

    From advertisements to e-mail, from materialism to remote controls, there's a witty answer for every situation. “You have been waiting patiently for a dictionary like this to come along. And now it is here,” recognizes Napoli. “Not that you give a crap.”

    He is sucked into a silent war which hinges on an incriminating data file. Finding it is Travis’s only hope for surviving a deadly chase across America. But to find its location, Travis must discover the link between the biggest medical cover-up in history and the greatest assassination conspiracy of the twentieth century. The key lies within a secret underground of doctors sworn to an ancient oath.When the solution is the problem, which side will you be on?

    His two previous books, "Picture Perfect Practice" and "Picture Perfect Posing," shattered the mold of instructional photography books as they empowered readers to advance their composition and posing skills. "Picture Perfect Lighting," the third book in the "Picture Perfect" series, brings that same spirit and approach to teaching lighting. With it, Roberto empowers photographers to embrace lighting as a source of creativity and expression in service of their vision for the image. In "Picture Perfect Lighting," Roberto has created a truly original system for understanding and controlling light in photography. After discussing the universal nature of light, Roberto introduces the five key behaviors of light, which are essential to understand in order to improve your knowledge of light. With those behaviors established, Roberto introduces his concept of circumstantial light, an ingenious way of examining and breaking down the light around you in any given situation. Providing a detailed analysis of circumstantial light, Roberto develops the top ten circumstantial light elements you need to know in order to fully harness the power of the light around you to create an image that is true to your vision. But how will you know if the circumstantial light is enough? The final piece of the "Picture Perfect Lighting" system is Roberto s lighting benchmark test, a brilliant method for determining the quality of the light in any given situation. It is with the lighting benchmark test that you will determine if and when you need to use helper light, the light that is needed or manipulated in order to help the circumstantial light so that your vision comes to life. Helper light is created with diffusers, reflectors, flashes, strobes, and light modifiers. "Picture Perfect Lighting" covers all of this in depth. Don t limit yourself to using only one kind of light, and don t depend on Photoshop actions and plug-ins to create the wow factor in your images. That is the job of light. With "Picture Perfect Lighting" by your side, you will learn to master light. With that mastery, you will finally have the ability to create that true wow factor in camera and in your photographs."

    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.

    From humorous fishing excursions and frightening bear encounters to snow blinding blizzards and quirky characters, they come face to face with the unpredictable Mother Nature and learn the value of friendship, survival, and solitude in a picturesque but harsh life by the sea. Packed with adventures, challenges, and true Alaskan lifestyle.

     It's a painless way to improve your French vocabulary and your confidence at reading and listening.(including Free MP3). No dictionary necessary-Each story is broken down with French and English Glossary. See example below; “Même si Laura est trop mauvaise cuisinière, et qu’elle est habituée à se nourrir uniquement de surgelés. Elle ne souhaite pas rater l’occasion de revoir toute sa famille. Elle réfléchit beaucoup mais ne trouve pas de solution. • est habitué = get used • se nourrir = feed • uniquement = only • surgelés = frozen food • rater l’occasion = miss the opportunity • réfléchit = think “ Never forget the vocabulary again: Vocabulary recap at the end of the book and each chapter. Practice your writing: Try to make your own summary. Compare it with an example for each chapter; Variety of situations: 7 stories about Travelling, Cooking, Shopping, Love, School, Relationship, Movie... Diverse Grammar structure and vocab: A good mix of dialogue and description. Improve your reading comprehension for newspaper articles, but also French spoken in the street. Practice your pronunciation and your listening with the free MP3!