Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Linguistics

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.

Would you receive a ‘char and a wad’ with a grateful smile? If asked to take a ‘dekko’, would you be offended? And if spotted reading the ‘yellow press’, would you be embarrassed?The meaning of these and many other intriguing phrases are defined, and their loss lamented, in this wonderfully nostalgic look at how language has changed over the past few decades.

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.

"Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" is a masterpiece of polished cynicism in which poison, explosive clocks, and finally murder forerun married bliss. Also included are: "The Canterville Ghost", "The Model Millionaire", "The Young King", "The Fisherman and His Soul", "The Happy Prince", "The Devoted Friend", and "The Portrait of Mr. W. H." These eight stories were produced in the heyday of Wilde's career.

Manon is just about to enter a convent when she meets the young Chevalier des Grieux, a philosophy student. They flee to Paris together, where they live extravagantly off the money the Chevalier makes cheating at cards, until they are robbed of their possessions. Manon becomes mistress to a wealthy nobleman, and she and the Chevalier steal his money. They are captured and sent to a penal colony in Louisiana.

Inspector Nayland Smith has unearthed a plot that could mean the end of civilization as we know it. He's just arrived in London, chasing the greatest criminal mind ever to come from the East. But when he arrives to warn Sir Crichton Davies that he is in danger, he finds he is too late. Sir Crichton has become the first victim of the insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu.

In The Dictionary Wars, Peter Martin recounts the patriotic fervor in the early American republic to produce a definitive national dictionary that would rival Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary of the English Language. But what began as a cultural war of independence from Britain devolved into a battle among lexicographers, authors, scholars, and publishers, all vying for dictionary supremacy and shattering forever the dream of a unified American language.

"Appartengo a quella parte dell'umanità che passa gran parte delle sue ore di veglia in un mondo fatto di righe orizzontali: un mondo che può essere molto ricco, magari ancor più ricco di quello non scritto, ma che comunque richiede un aggiustamento speciale per situarsi al suo interno. Quando mi stacco dal mondo scritto per ritrovare il mio posto nell'altro, in quello che usiamo chiamare il mondo, fatto di tre dimensioni, cinque sensi, popolato da miliardi di nostri simili, questo equivale per me ogni volta a ripetere il trauma della nascita." (Italo Calvino)

Charlemagne is reported to have said that “to speak another language is to possess another soul”. The Art of Learning a Foreign Language consists of all the things I wish I knew at various stages of my language learning journey during the last 15 years—as a hobbyist, student, academic, and professional linguist. This book is designed to help the learner avoid many pitfalls and seize opportunities, with lessons on choosing a target language, travel, accent, immersion, technology, learning approaches, and the lifestyle habits of professional linguists.

Spoken by a quarter of the world's population, English is today's lingua franca—its common tongue. The language of business, popular media, and international politics, English has become commodified for its economic value and increasingly detached from any particular nation. This meteoric "rise of English" has many obvious benefits, but very real downsides as well. In The Rise of English, Rosemary Salomone offers a commanding view of the unprecedented spread of English and the far-reaching effects it has on global and local politics, economics, media, education, and business.

This book is a collection of stories revolving around language by a seasoned conference interpreter and former chief interpreter in the United Nations system. Ewandro Magalhaes shares actionable career insights and offers an insider’s look into practical and historical aspects of one of the most exciting and stressful professions known to man.

On Heroes, Hero Worship, and The Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle, is a collection of six lectures given in May 1840 about prominent historical figures. It sets out Carlyle's belief in the importance of heroic leadership, his view of how the world would be if powerful and inspired men were to have the power he thought they deserved. The collection includes figures ranging from religion to literature and politics, and the figures chosen were presented by Carlyle as archetypal examples of individuals who had dramatically impacted history for good or ill.

Language is a wild animal: rough, ambiguous, inconsistent in countless ways. But that just makes it all the more tempting to tame it. Many have tried, from sticklers for supposedly correct grammar to inventors of supposedly perfect languages; from software engineers working on machine translation to governments that see language management as politics by another means. But when you enter the lair of a wild beast, you can be lucky to escape with your wits. Join Lane Greene on a journey of discovery into the deep strangeness of language.

At its heart, De Profundis is a love letter and is better known as the De Profundis papers. Written in 1897, while Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in Reading Gaol, De Profundis would become one of his best-known works. The papers include Wilde's account of living a lavish lifestyle and his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, both of which he credited for his eventual downfall and imprisonment. The second half of the papers is Wilde's account of prison life and his spiritual awakening.

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.

David Korten argues that global corporate consolidation of power is but one manifestation of what he calls "Empire", the organization of society by hierarchies of dominance that have held sway for the past 5,000 years. Empire has always resulted in misery for the many and fortune for the few. Now it threatens the very future of humanity. The Great Turning traces the ancient roots of Empire and charts its long evolution from monarchies to the transnational institutions of the global economy.

Enter the captivating world of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales." This collection of short stories takes listeners on a journey through the mysterious and dark corners of the human psyche. Hawthorne's masterful storytelling skillfully weaves together elements of the supernatural, romance, and allegory, creating a rich tapestry of narratives that explore the complexities of human nature. Each tale is beautifully crafted, immersing the listener in atmospheric settings and thought-provoking themes.

The Future of Language distinguishes myth from reality and superstition from scientifically based prediction as it plots out the importance of language and raises questions about its future. From the rise of artificial intelligence and speaking robots, to brain implants and computer-facilitated telepathy, language and communications expert Philip Seargeant surveys the development of new digital ‘languages’ and investigates how conventions of spoken and written language are being modified by new trends in communication.

In this collection, Melvyn Bragg surveys how English has evolved over 1,000 years. He starts by looking at the disappearance of old dialects like that of Cumbria, and how English has been enriched by foreign languages, from Latin and Old French to dozens more as conquest, trade and immigration played their part in recent centuries. He also examines new coinages, puns and wordplay; how accents and social class are entwined; swear words; attempts to stop the evolution of language in its tracks and, lastly, the many varieties of English that are spoken around the world today.

Victory is the story of a loner who believes that the best way to avoid life's pain and pitfalls is to distance himself from others. In spite of his misgivings, Axel Heyst agrees to manage a coal company on a remote island. When the company eventually fails, he again turns his back on people and society, more convinced than ever that his original philosophy was right.