| Author | : Fred Sedgwick |
| Publisher | : A&C Black |
| Total Pages | : 442 |
| Release | : 2009-07-10 |
| Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
| ISBN | : 1847062741 |
An invaluable guide to the fascinating origins of everyday words crafted into pithy annecdotes and facts.
Where Do Words Come From?
| Author | : Jeff Zwiers |
| Publisher | : Reycraft Books |
| Total Pages | : 32 |
| Release | : 2021-11-28 |
| Genre | : Juvenile Fiction |
| ISBN | : 9781478874058 |
Words are everywhere. But do you know where your favorite words come from? Maybe they plop to the ground from high up in the sky! Or maybe workers piece them together in big factories. Or maybe they come from a one-of-a-kind word-maker . . . but who could that be? Vivid letter-filled illustrations explore imaginative ways words are made as this book shares the secret to creating new words.
The Etymologicon
| Author | : Mark Forsyth |
| Publisher | : Penguin |
| Total Pages | : 305 |
| Release | : 2012-10-02 |
| Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
| ISBN | : 1101611766 |
This perfect gift for readers, writers, and literature majors alike unearths the quirks of the English language. For example, do you know why a mortgage is literally a “death pledge”? Why guns have girls’ names? Why “salt” is related to “soldier”? Discover the answers to all of these etymological questions and more in this fascinating book for fans of of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The Etymologicon is a completely unauthorized guide to the strange underpinnings of the English language. It explains how you get from “gruntled” to “disgruntled”; why you are absolutely right to believe that your meager salary barely covers “money for salt”; how the biggest chain of coffee shops in the world connects to whaling in Nantucket; and what, precisely, the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening. This witty book will awake the linguist in you and illuminate the hidden meanings behind common words and phrases, tracing their evolution through all of their surprising paths throughout history.
Word Origins And How We Know Them
| Author | : Anatoly Liberman |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 336 |
| Release | : 2009-04-13 |
| Genre | : Reference |
| ISBN | : 0199889015 |
Written in a funny, charming, and conversational style, Word Origins is the first book to offer a thorough investigation of the history and the science of etymology, making this little-known field accessible to everyone interested in the history of words. Anatoly Liberman, an internationally acclaimed etymologist, takes the reader by the hand and explains the many ways that English words can be made, and the many ways in which etymologists try to unearth the origins of words. Every chapter is packed with dozens of examples of proven word histories, used to illustrate the correct ways to trace the origins of words as well as some of the egregiously bad ways to trace them. He not only tells the known origins of hundreds of words, but also shows how their origins were determined. And along the way, the reader is treated to a wealth of fascinating word facts. Did they once have bells in a belfry? No, the original meaning of belfry was siege tower. Are the words isle and island, raven and ravenous, or pan and pantry related etymologically? No, though they look strikingly similar, these words came to English via different routes. Partly a history, partly a how-to, and completely entertaining, Word Origins invites readers behind the scenes to watch an etymologist at work.
Origins of Words and Phrases
| Author | : Reader's Digest Association, Limited |
| Publisher | : Reader's Digest Association |
| Total Pages | : 382 |
| Release | : 2008-02-01 |
| Genre | : English language |
| ISBN | : 9780276442445 |
Reveals the secrets, scandals and surprises behind the words used every day. This book includes the stories and the personalities that have helped shape the English language from William Shakespeare and Lord Byron, to Rudyard Kipling and Salmon Rushdie.
The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical, and Anecdotal
| Author | : John Camden Hotten |
| Publisher | : London : Chatto and Windus |
| Total Pages | : 400 |
| Release | : 1874 |
| Genre | : English language |
| ISBN | : |
Oxford English Dictionary
| Author | : John A. Simpson |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : |
| Release | : 2002-04-18 |
| Genre | : Reference |
| ISBN | : 9780195218893 |
The Oxford English Dictionary is the internationally recognized authority on the evolution of the English language from 1150 to the present day. The Dictionary defines over 500,000 words, making it an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, pronunciation, and history of the English language. This new upgrade version of The Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM offers unparalleled access to the world's most important reference work for the English language. The text of this version has been augmented with the inclusion of the Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series (Volumes 1-3), published in 1993 and 1997, the Bibliography to the Second Edition, and other ancillary material. System requirements: PC with minimum 200 MHz Pentium-class processor; 32 MB RAM (64 MB recommended); 16-speed CD-ROM drive (32-speed recommended); Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 200, or XP (Local administrator rights are required to install and open the OED for the first time on a PC running Windows NT 4 and to install and run the OED on Windows 2000 and XP); 1.1 GB hard disk space to run the OED from the CD-ROM and 1.7 GB to install the CD-ROM to the hard disk: SVGA monitor: 800 x 600 pixels: 16-bit (64k, high color) setting recommended. Please note: for the upgrade, installation requires the use of the OED CD-ROM v2.0.
How to Do Things with Words
| Author | : John Langshaw Austin |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 181 |
| Release | : 1975 |
| Genre | : Language and languages |
| ISBN | : 019824553X |
This work sets out Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts for at least the last ten years of his life. Starting from an exhaustive examination of his already well-known distinction between performative utterances and statements, Austin here finally abandons that distinction, replacing it with a more general theory of 'illocutionary forces' of utterances which has important bearings on a wide variety of philosophicalproblems.
