*A TIME, New Yorker, Financial Times and History Today Book of the Year*'Hilarious' Sam Leith'I loved this book' Susie Dent''Witty and affectionate' Lynne TrussPerfect for book …
Nothing inflames the language gripers like a misplaced disinterested, an illogical irregardless, a hideous operationalisation. To purists these are 'howlers' and 'non-words', fit …
In this provocative and persuasive new book, Nicholas Ostler challenges our assumption that English will continue to dominate as the global lingua franca. Drawing on his …
From 'shotclog', a Yorkshire term for a companion only tolerated because he is paying for the drinks, to Albanian having 29 words to describe different kinds of eyebrows, the …
Ammon Shea was ten when he first discovered the joy of reading a dictionary rather than using it to look a word up. Little did he imagine that one day he would spend over $1,000 …
Unravel the mysteries of language with J.P. Davidson's remarkable Planet Word.'The way you speak is who you are and the tones of your voice and the tricks of your emailing and …
'I have spent almost 33 of the last 53 years in and out of prison, but mainly in. I was a juvenile offender back in the mid 1970s and went on to become an adult prisoner in the …
Keith Houston's entertaining book, inspired by his popular blog shadycharacters.co.uk, tells the unexpected stories of some unusual, and familiar, typographical marks and reveals a …
Why do so many swear words involve sex, bodily functions and religion? Why are some words rude and others aren't? Why can launching into expletives be so shocking - and sometimes …
Vocabulary alone isn't enough. To survive in the most sophisticated - and the most scathing - nation on Earth you will need to understand the many peculiarities of the (very …
