🧲 Books like this
Other-Wordly: Words Both Strange and Lovely from Around the World
Yee-Lum Mak · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorLost 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
An Exaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition, More than 1,000 Terms
James Lipton · 230 pages
A collection of "terms of venery," collective nouns. The origin of some of the terms is explained, and more than 250 of the terms are illustrated with engravings by Dürer and Grandville and others.
The Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
Karen Elizabeth Gordon · 98 pages
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.
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 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
A Dictionary of Modern English Usage
Henry Watson Fowler · 742 pages
Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind
George Lakoff · 614 pages
Focusing on studies of how humans categorize objects and ideas, this book examines the new understanding of human thought which proposes that human reason is imaginative, metaphorical, and intrinsically linked with the human body.
Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language
Douglas R. Hofstadter · 632 pages
Not Merely a set of translations of one poem, Le Ton beau de Marot is an autobiographical essay, a love letter to the French language, a series of musings on life, loss, and death, a sweet bouquet of stirring poetry - but most of all, it celebrates the limitless creativity fired by a passion for the music of words. Dozens of literary themes and creations are woven into the picture, including Push
The Story of French
Jean-Benoit Nadeau, Julie Barlow · 496 pages
Experiences in translation
Umberto Eco · 135 pages
"Translation is not about comparing two languages, Umberto Eco argues, but about the interpretation of a text in two different languages.". "In this book he draws on his substantial practical experience to identify and discuss some central problems of translation. As he demonstrates, a translation can express an evident deep sense of a text even when violating both lexical and referential faithfu
On Language
Noam Chomsky, Mitsou Ronat · 269 pages
In Part I, Language and Responsibility, Chomsky presents a fascinating self-portrait of his political, moral, and linguistic thinking. In Part II, Reflections on Language, Chomsky explores the more general implications of the study of language and offers incisive analyses of the controversies among psychologists, philosophers, and linguists over fundamental questions of language.
I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way We See the World
James Geary · 296 pages
Geary's adept explication of the metaphor's role in defining perceptions analyzes how metaphors are used in advertising, scientific discoveries, economics, and politics, as well as how metaphors play in conceptual comprehension and long-term memory.
The Grammar Devotional: Daily Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl
Mignon Fogarty · 233 pages
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
You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation
Deborah Tannen · 330 pages
Just sit down and read it. Yes, you will want to throw it. You will want to forget it, but that is not possible. It will cross your mind and impact you when you would otherwise just get frustrated. There is one major error, when you read it and reflect on it, forget the gender comments, they are a distraction. Gender is not the answer, see the later book, "That's Not What I Ment" for more unde
Of Grammatology
Jacques Derrida · 354 pages
Jacques Derrida's revolutionary theories about deconstruction, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, first voiced in the 1960s, forever changed the face of European and American criticism. The ideas in De la grammatologie sparked lively debates in intellectual circles that included students of literature, philosophy, and the humanities, inspiring these students to ask questions of thei
The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
Simon Winchester · 286 pages
Traces the history of the Oxford English Dictionary from its earliest inception through its long path to completion, describes the process of creating a dictionary, and includes anecdotes about its creators and their work.
How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One
Stanley Fish · 165 pages
Some appreciate fine art; others appreciate fine wines. Stanley Fish appreciates fine sentences. The New York Times columnist and world-class professor has long been an aficionado of language: "I am always on the lookout for sentences that take your breath away, for sentences that make you say, 'Isn't that something?' or 'What a sentence!'" Like a seasoned sportscaster, Fish marvels at the adeptne
The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code
Margalit Fox · 363 pages
In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, *The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code* tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on
Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, And Language
Deborah Fallows · 205 pages
Fallows unravels Chinese culture by explaining the intricacies and subtleties of Mandarin, devoting each chapter to a particular linguistic quirk.
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
Wheelock's Latin
Frederic M. Wheelock · 511 pages
The classic beginning Latin texbook offers forty chapters with grammatical explanations and readings based on ancient Roman authors, along with self-tutorial exercises and an answer key for independent study.

