Showing titles in Linguistics

Why do we love to swear so much? Why do we get so offended when others do it? In this lively and amusing exploration of the various puzzles that surround swearing, philosopher Rebecca Roache argues that what makes swearing offensive is not really the words at all: the offensiveness lies in what we don't say. The unspoken—and usually unconscious—inferences that speakers and listeners make about each other are key to explaining swearwords' capacity to shock.

Learn how to decode the private languages that are swapped around us every day - amongst cabbies and paramedics, soap stars and comedians, cricketers and barristers - in Susie Dent's unique and witty guide to Britain's modern tribes. Did you know that a soldier's biggest social blunder is called 'jack brew' - making yourself a cuppa without making one for anyone else? That twitchers have an expression for a bird that can't be identified - LBJ (the letters stand for little brown job)?

Almost everyone swears, or worries about not swearing, from the two year-old who has just discovered the power of potty mouth to the grandma who wonders why every other word she hears is obscene. Whether they express anger or exhilaration, are meant to insult or to commend, swear words perform a crucial role in language. But swearing is also a uniquely well-suited lens through which to look at history, offering a fascinating record of what people care about on the deepest levels of a culture - what's divine, what's terrifying, and what's taboo.

Half the world's population speaks a language that has evolved from a single prehistoric mother tongue. First spoken in Stone Age times on the steppes of central Eurasia 6,500 years ago, this mother tongue spread from the shores of the Black Sea across almost all of Europe and much of Asia. It is the genetic basis of everything we speak and write today - the DNA of language.

George Horace Lorimer is best known as the editor of The Saturday Evening Post, where he was credited with promoting and discovering authors like Jack London. Lorimer compiled his life advice into the fictional letters from John "Old Gorgon" Graham to his son Pierrepont. John Graham is a Chicago-based pork and finance baron. In the letters Pierrepont receives advice for his different stages of life. Old Gorgon's advice is packed throughout the book, easy to understand, and still rings true today.

In The Napoleon of Notting Hill, his first novel, G. K. Chesterton creates a witty satire of staid government, set in a London of the future. Auberon Quinn, a common clerk who looks like a cross between a baby and an owl and is often seen standing on his head, is one day told that he has been randomly selected to be His Majesty the King. He decides to turn London into a medieval carnival for his own amusement - with delightful results.

Returning to the "Aunt Hill" from a two-year trip around the world, 20-year-old Rose Campbell suddenly finds herself surrounded by male admirers, all expecting her to marry them! Rose is rich and pretty, and she suspects many of these suitors are more interested in her wealth than her dreams. But she is determined to live her own life and find her own love, despite the many plans of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Louisa May Alcott wrote this delightful sequel to Eight Cousins at the request of her many fans.

Written during his time in Reading Gaol, De Profundis is Oscar Wilde's moving letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, whose relationship with Wilde led to the poet's imprisonment. Here Wilde repudiates Lord Alfred and reflects on his ordeal, acknowledging how the depths of his sorrow have helped liberate him toward a fuller, freer wisdom. Brimming with beautiful passages, De Profundis is a profound and inspiring treatise on the meaning of suffering.

Thirteen chapters evoke the joy and discovery of reading a menu dotted with the sharp-eyed annotations of a linguist. Jurafsky points out the subtle meanings hidden in filler words like "rich" and "crispy," zeroes in on the metaphors and storytelling tropes we rely on in restaurant reviews, and charts a micro-universe of marketing language on the back of a bag of potato chips.

E. M. Forster’s first novel explores the comic and tragic effects of culture clash between insular, provincial British personalities and sensual Italian culture and atmosphere. Lilia Herriton, an impulsive 33-year-old widow from London, travels to Tuscany, where she falls in love with both Italy and the handsome, carefree Gino Carelli, a dentist’s son 12 years her junior. When news reaches the snobbish Herriton family that Lilia intends to marry again, this time to an unsuitable Italian, the domineering Mrs. Herriton sends her son, Philip, to prevent the catastrophe - but he arrives too late.

Phineas Finn, a handsome young man of 23, comes to England to make his fortune in parliamentary politics. But despite all his aspirations, Finn is haunted by ethical questions as his personal convictions conflict with his duty towards his party. Loyalty versus honor, love versus money, and privacy versus prominence: our eponymous hero faces a variety of dilemmas as he navigates his way through the House of Commons.

Noam Chomsky is widely known and deeply admired for being the founder of modern linguistics, one of the founders of the field of cognitive science, and perhaps the most avidly read political theorist and commentator of our time. In these lectures, he presents a lifetime of philosophical reflection on all three of these areas of research to which he has contributed for over half a century.

Ann Eliza and Evelina Bunner are two unmarried sisters who own a small notions shop in a shabby section of New York City circa 1900. The older sister, Ann Eliza, buys a small clock for her sister's birthday from a tiny shop and meets the owner, a German immigrant named Herman Ramy. Once Mr. Ramy enters their lives, things begin to change in ways that neither sister could have imagined.

In A Hero of Our Time, Grigory Pechorin is a bored, self-centered, and cynical young army officer who believes in nothing. With impunity he toys with the love of women and the goodwill of men. He is brave, determined, and willful, but his wasted energy and potential ultimately result in tragedy.

Bring history back to life through Jim Hodges' historically accurate, exciting, and edifying audio recordings. The conquest of the Aztec Empire by Hernando Cortez and a mere handful of Spaniards is one of the greatest romances of history. A writer of fiction would scarcely have dared to invent so improbable a story, but it is true. Fortunately Cortez was able to ally himself with many peoples conquered by the Aztecs who were all too happy to assist in their downfall.

A devastating depiction of obsessive love and a haunting portrait of a captivating but dangerous woman. When the young Chevalier des Grieux first sets eyes on the exquisitely beautiful and charming Manon Lescaut they fall passionately in love. But his happiness turns to bitter despair when he...

A sinister masterpiece, Our Mutual Friend was Dickens' last completed novel. It is perhaps his ultimate vision of a dark, macabre London and the corrupting power of money.

Follow the journey of Horace Holly and his ward, Leo Vincey, to a lost kingdom in the African interior. There they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen named Ayesha who reigns as the all-powerful "She", or "She-who-must-be-obeyed". In this work, Rider Haggard developed the conventions of the Lost World subgenre, which many later authors emulated.

Stalky & Co. is a book published in 1899 (following serialization in the Windsor Magazine) by Rudyard Kipling, about adolescent boys at a British boarding school. It is a collection of linked short stories in format, with some information about the charismatic Stalky character in later life. The character Beetle, one of the main trio, is partly based on Kipling himself. Stalky is based on Lionel Dunsterville, M'Turk is based on George Charles Beresford, and Mr. King is based on William Carr Crofts.

In Highly Irregular, Arika Okrent tells the story of the many influences - from invading French armies to stubborn Flemish printers - that made our language the way it is today. Both an entertaining send-up of linguistic oddities and a deeply researched history of English, Highly Irregular is essential for anyone who has paused to wonder about our marvelous mess of a language.