Showing titles in Linguistics

This is the handwritten book that Carroll wrote for private use before being urged to develop it later into Alice in Wonderland. It was meant to entertain his family and friends. When a sick child in a hospital enjoyed it so much, the mother wrote him saying it had distracted her for a bit from her pain and led eventually to Carroll expanding the story.

Our use of language naturally evolves and is a living breathing thing that reflects who we are. Says Who? offers clear, nuanced guidance that goes beyond “right” and “wrong” to empower us to make informed language choices. Never snooty or scoldy (yes, that’s a “real” word!), this book explains where the grammar rules we learned in school actually come from and reveals the forces that drive dictionary editors to label certain words as slang or unacceptable.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, the English poet Francis Thompson (1859-1907) was a true mystic. While more celebrated poets, like Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Arnold, were content to express their religious leanings in traditional devotional formulae, Thompson strove to portray the divine directly, in all its terrifying majesty. In this way he is more akin to earlier masters, like Henry Vaughan and George Herbert, than to the poets of his own day.

By clever scheming, friends encourage Beatrice and Benedict's love affair, while Don Juan plots to ruin Hero and Claudio's chances of finding happiness together.

The Voyage Out is Virginia Woolf's haunting tale about a naïve young woman's sea voyage from London to a small resort on the South American coast. In symbolic, lyrical, and intoxicating prose, her outward journey begins to mirror her internal voyage into adulthood as she searches for her personal identity, grapples with love, and learns how to face life intellectually and emotionally. Its wit and exquisiteness, and its profound depth and insight into humanity, will capture the imagination of the listener.

In a fortuitous laboratory accident, crack scientist Richard Seaton has unlocked the secret of atomic energy. Now, partnered with his wealthy engineering-genius friend Martin Crane, he's preparing to give the world the gift of limitless, virtually free energy - and of space travel. But others want Seaton's secret for themselves.

Phineas Finn is an Irish M.P.A. climbing the political ladder, largely through the assistance of his string of lovers. The questions he is forced to ask himself about honesty, independence, and parliamentary democracy are questions still asked today.

Soon-to-be heiress Betty Stanhope is a runaway bride, but not for the usual reasons - she didn't flee because of a change of heart. Reluctant about the wedding at the outset, the dutiful Betty reaches the altar to find that her groom is a different man altogether and someone she's dreaded most of her life! Before the wedding can proceed, she is taken to a room to recover from her fainting spell.

We all learn at least one language as children. But what does it take to learn six languages...or seventy? In Babel No More, Michael Erard, "a monolingual with benefits," sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like Italian cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages; Emil Krebs, a pugnacious German diplomat, who spoke sixty-eight languages; and Lomb Kat, a Hungarian who taught herself Russian by reading Russian romance novels.

The legendary Tarzan claims his birthright title as Lord Greystoke and starts a small family with Jane, now his wife. But just when things are going right, the evil Rokoff kidnaps Tarzan's infant son, Jack, luring Tarzan into a trap. After Rokoff exiles him on an island near the African coast, Tarzan uses his skills learned from the jungle to win the favor of various wild animals. Tarzan must enlist these creatures to help him track down Rokoff in order to save his family from certain demise.

Sì, si dice "supercàzzora" e non "supercàzzola". Rigorosamente con la R e non con la L. Questo è assodato, dimostrato, dimostrabile, granitico, inamovibile e definitivo e costituisce una delle poche, pochissime certezze della vita. Tutto il resto è pura illusione.

Where do our everyday words come from? The bagel you eat for breakfast, the bumf you have to wade through at the office, and the bus that takes you home again: we use these words without thinking about their origins or how their meanings have changed over time. Simon Horobin takes the listener on a journey through a typical day, showing how the words we use to describe routine activities - getting up, going to work, eating meals - have surprisingly fascinating histories.

A celebration of the huge linguistic diversity that is open to all of us at birth, and that has inspired and fascinated humans since the invention of speech. The acclaimed novelist Sophie Hardach - a German native who writes in English - explores languages, and multilingualism, as an expression of human creativity and identity, and a way to connect in an often fractured world - a necessary and important pursuit in these politically divided times.

The original and immortal poem also known as "A Visit from St. Nicholas". Classic Tales narrator B. J. Harrison gives a stellar reading of this Christmas classic.

In this, the first of the Palliser parliamentary novels, the plight of women in marriage, politics and private life is seen through the eyes of Alice and Kate Vavisor, Lady Glencora and the coquettish Mrs. Greenow.

Whether it’s brusque, convincing, fraught with emotion, or dripping with innuendo, language is fundamentally a tool for conveying meaning - a uniquely human magic trick in which you vibrate your vocal cords to make your innermost thoughts pop up in someone else’s mind. You can use it to talk about all sorts of things - from your new labradoodle puppy to the expansive gardens at Versailles, from Roger Federer’s backhand to things that don’t exist at all, like flying pigs.

In a sweeping synthesis of new research in a number of different disciplines, this book argues that we humans are not who we think we are. As he explores the interconnections between cutting-edge work in bioanthropology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, human language and learning, and beyond, James Paul Gee advances, also, a personal philosophy of language, learning, and culture, informed by his decades of work across linguistics and the social sciences.

Evoking Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, this is a story of interlocking tales from a group of steamboat passengers traveling down the Mississippi toward New Orleans. Aboard the Fidèle can be found all manner of con men, from those selling stock in failing companies and herbal cure-all "medicines" to those who are raising money for supposed charitable organizations and those who simply ask for money outright.

Vera; or, The Nihilists is Oscar Wilde’s first play. It features Russian revolutionaries who seek to assassinate a reform-minded Emperor, and is loosely based on the life of Vera Zasulich who shot the Governor of St. Petersburg in 1878. Contemporary events in Russia, as published in the British press of the time, clearly influenced the plot and characters. The first public performance of Vera; or, The Nihilists was in New York City in 1883. The play was a failure and folded after one week. It remains fascinating as part of a study into the development of Wilde's work.

The Woman Who Did, written in 1893 wholly and solely to satisfy the author's conscience, was perhaps the most controversial book of the late 19th century. Certainly, it was a succès de scandale and a commercial triumph. The heroine, Herminia Barton, chooses to live unmarried with her lover. When he dies, she endures many a trial for her beliefs - particularly after the stigma of bearing his child - being cast out from both families.