Word NerdUnpublished

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This rollercoaster ride through the colorful history of slang--from highwaymen to hip-hop--is a fresh and exciting take on the subject: entertaining and authoritative without being patronizing, out-of-touch or voyeuristic. Slang is the language of pop culture, low culture, street...

Do you have strong feelings about the word "irregardless"? Have you ever tried to define the word "is"? Brimming with intelligence and personality, this vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made is a must-read for word mavens. Many of us take dictionaries...

"A provocative and jaunty romp through the dos and don'ts of writing for the internet" (NYT)--the practical, the playful, and the politically correct--from BuzzFeed copy chief Emmy Favilla. A World Without "Whom" is Eats, Shoots & Leaves for the internet...

From master language creator David J. Peterson, creator of Game of Thrones' (HBO) Dothraki language, comes a creative guide to language construction. Peterson begins with a brief history of constructed languages, from Tolkien's creations to Klingon to the thriving global community of language...

"A delightful treasure house, literally a thesaurus, of linguistic marvels." --from the foreword by bestselling author Simon Winchester A colorfully illustrated collection of more than ninety untranslatable words and phrases and the unique insights they offer into...

A history of the English language written in a non-technical manner for a general audience. Bryson begins with language's Neanderthal origins and goes on the describe the key people and events that have shaped English into its modern form and character. Annotation(c) 2003 Book News, Inc.,...

Some people may dismiss puns as the lowest form of humor. But this attitude is a relatively recent development in the sweep of history. In The Pun Also Rises, John Pollack-a former presidential speechwriter for Bill Clinton, and winner of the world pun championship-explains how punning...

Just about everyone has heard of Esperanto, which was nothing less than one man’s attempt to bring about world peace by means of linguistic solidarity. And every Star Trek fan knows about Klingon, which was nothing more than a television show’s attempt to create a tough-sounding...

Steven Pinker analyses what words actually mean and how we use them, and he reveals what this can tell us about ourselves. He shows how we use space and motion as metaphors for more abstracted ideas, and uncovers the deeper structures of human thought that have been shaped by evolutionary history.

A bestselling linguist takes us on a lively tour of how the English language is evolving before our eyes -- and why we should embrace this transformation and not fight it Language is always changing -- but we tend not to like it. We understand that new words must be created...