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An Exaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition, More than 1,000 Terms
James Lipton · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorOther-Wordly: Words Both Strange and Lovely from Around the World
Yee-Lum Mak · 53 pages
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference!
Lynne Truss
"Punctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, or stop. Of all the punctuation marks, the comma is the most used and misused. Commas can create havoc when they are left out or are put in the wrong spot, and the results of misuse can be hilarious. This little dot with a tail has the power to change the meaning of a sentence by connecti
The Transitive Vampire
Karen Elizabeth Gordon · 144 pages
Playful, practical, this is the style book you can't wait to use, a guide that addresses classic questions of English usage with wit & black humor. Black-&-white illustrations throughout.
Speaking American: How Y'all, Youse, and You Guys Talk: A Visual Guide
Josh Katz · 203 pages
"From the creator of the New York Times dialect quiz that ignited conversations about how and why we say the words we say, a stunning and delightful exploration of American language"--Amazon.com.
Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World
Ella Frances Sanders · 112 pages
"An artistic collection of 50 drawings featuring unique, funny, and poignant foreign words that have no direct translation into English. Did you know that the Japanese have a word to express the way sunlight filters through the leaves of trees? Or that there's a Swedish word to describe the reflection of the moon across the water? The nuanced beauty of language is even more interesting and relevan
The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus
Jennifer Fisher Bryant
"Words, Peter learned, were powerful things. And when he put them in long, neat rows, he felt as if the world itself clicked into order." For shy young Peter Mark Roget, books were the best companions — and it wasn't long before Peter began writing his own book. But he didn't write stories; he wrote lists. Peter took his love for words and used it to organize his ideas and find exactly the righ
Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences
Kitty Burns Florey · 165 pages
Once wildly popular and used by teachers across America to teach grammar, sentence diagramming is now a lost art to most people. But from the moment she encountered it in the seventh-grade classroom of Sister Bernadette, Kitty Burns Florey was fascinated by the bizarre method of mapping the words in a sentence. Now a veteran copyeditor, Florey studies the practice in a funny look back at its odd h
Anonyponymous: The Forgotten People behind Everyday Words
John Bemelmans Marciano · 152 pages
A collection of short essays shares the whimsical stories behind many everyday terms, from the Earl of Sandwich's invention of the meat-and-bread combination to Etienne de Silhouette's money-saving alternative to the portrait.
The Phantom Tollbooth
Norton Juster · 256 pages
It has been fifty years—and millions of readers—since the world was first introduced to Milo and his adventures in the Lands Beyond with Tock, the Humbug, and the captive princesses Rhyme and Reason. Now we have a remarkable 50th anniversary edition to honor this universally adored and deeply influential novel. This special edition will include: • Gorgeous packaging that features the classic
Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing
Melissa Mohr · 336 pages
"Holy Sh*t tells the story of two kinds of swearing--obscenities and oaths--from ancient Rome and the Bible to today. With humor and insight, Melissa Mohr takes readers on a journey to discover how "swearing" has come to include both testifying with your hand on the Bible and calling someone a *#$&!* when they cut you off on the highway. She explores obscenities in ancient Rome--which were remarka
English as She Is Spoke: Being a Comprehensive Phrasebook of the English Language, Written by Men to Whom English was Entirely Unknown
Pedro Carolino, Jose da Fonseca · 107 pages
Words on the Move: Why English Won't—and Can't—Sit Still
John McWhorter · 257 pages
"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 for new things, but the way English is spoken today rubs many of us the wrong way. Whether its the use of literally to mean "f
My Grammar and I... Or Should That Be Me?: How to Speak and Write It Right
Caroline Taggart, J.A. Wines
Lapsing Into a Comma: A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print--And How to Avoid Them
Bill Walsh · 256 pages
No writer's or editor's desk is complete without a battered, page-bent copy of the AP Stylebook. However, this not-so-easy-to-use reference of journalistic style is often not up-to-date and leaves reporters and copyeditors unsatisfied. Bill Walsh, copy chief for the Washington Post's business desk, addresses these shortcomings in Lapsing into a Comma. In an opinionated, humorous, and yes, curmudge
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
Bill Bryson · 270 pages
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English
Patricia T. O'Conner · 256 pages
A guide to English grammar and style reveals the underlying logic of the language with the help of examples organized according to specific problems.
The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago
Carol Fisher Saller · 134 pages
Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language & Style
Arthur Plotnik · 288 pages
Presents a comprehensive guide to creating winning manuscripts that will sell, and provide tips and techniques on language, dialogue, diction and more.
Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story
Michael Rosen · 431 pages
"How on Earth did we fix upon our twenty-six letters, what do they really mean, and how did we come to write them down in the first place? Michael Rosen takes you on an unforgettable adventure through the history of the alphabet in twenty-six vivid chapters, fizzing with personal anecdotes and fascinating facts. Starting with the mysterious Phoenicians and how sounds first came to be written down,
The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time
Jeff Deck, Benjamin D. Herson · 288 pages
In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language
Arika Okrent · 342 pages
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 language befitting a warrior race with ridged foreheads. But few people have heard of Babm, Blissymbolics, and the nearl