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 for granted, and few may realize that the process of writing dictionaries is, in fact, as lively and dynamic as language itself. With sharp wit and irreverence, Kory Stamper cracks open the complex, obsessive world of lexicography, from the agonizing decisions about what to define and how to do it, to the knotty questions of usage in an ever-changing language. She explains why small words are the most difficult to define, how it can take nine months to define a single word, and how our biases about language and pronunciation can have tremendous social influence. And along the way, she reveals little-known surprises—for example, the fact that “OMG” was first used in a letter to Winston Churchill in 1917. Word b
Words are essential to our everyday lives. An average person spends his or her day enveloped in conversations, e-mails, phone calls, text messages, directions, headlines, and more. But how often do w
AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEARThe Secret Life of Words is a wide-ranging account of the transplanted, stolen, bastardized words we've come to know as the English languag. It's a history of English as
Listen to ancient tales from Oakheart the Brave, the oldest and wisest tree in the forest, and be inspired by the magic and mystery of nature. Combining non-fiction with a splash of fantasy, this is a
My arms stretch out all day long. I can be climbed, but I’m not a mountain. What am I?I am Oakheart, the oldest tree in the forest!Did you know that trees can talk to each other? Or that the oldest li
Tiger says he is a cat with simple pleasures. He likes to spend his days wandering about, chatting with friends and having a little snack. And despite the gossip concerning his ferocious appetite, he'
Tiger likes to spend his days wandering about, chatting with friends and having a little snack, but there are rumours going around that he's wild, scary and bites! It's only at night that Tiger's secr
Tiger says he is a cat with simple pleasures. He likes to spend his days wandering about, chatting with friends and having a little snack. And despite the gossip concerning his ferocious appetite, he'
We spend our lives communicating. In the last fifty years, we've zoomed through radically different forms of communication, from typewriters to tablet computers, text messages to tweets. We generate m
In The Secret Life of Pronouns, social psychologist and language expert James W. Pennebaker uses his groundbreaking research in computational linguistics-in essence, counting the frequency of words we
Since software programs have come to dominate offices and studios, the pencil has become a symbol for creative freedom. In other words, the work you do on the computer is what you do for work, to pay
In Secret Life, Professor David M. Jacobs of Temple University takes us into the private world of those abducted by aliens, letting them describe in their own words what it is like to be abducted. Bas
From the bestselling author of Before I Let You Go comes a touching, beautifully told story about the enduring strength of a mother's love."You were adopted."Three short words and Sabina's life fractu
