How to Sound Really Clever: 600 Words You Need to Know

ISBN-13: 9781472922472 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 224 str.

Hubert van den Bergh

Opis

Outfoxed by words like condign, Zelig-like and agitprop? Unsure of the true meanings of nonplussed, disinterested and gauntlet? How to Sound Really Clever explains over 600 words that you really ought to know but haven’t had time to look up in the dictionary. In this sequel to the bestselling How to Sound Clever, author Hubert van den Bergh brings together more words that have made him raise an admiring eyebrow when hearing them trip off other people’s tongues, or smile when seeing them in newsprint. The stories behind the everyday words that pepper this book may surprise you – like that behind pastiche (and why it derives from the Italian for ‘piecrust’) – and will help you clear up those linguistic riddles that no one around a dinner table ever seems to be able to explain.

Recenzje

A very handy resource when you need to make those fine distinctions between the ego and the superego, if you can't tell your exogenous from your endogenous or need to understand what makes for a diegetic soundtrack in a film. How to Sound Really Clever is a teasing mixture of the half-familiar and the intriguingly obscure, and it's all done with a light touch. Philip Gooden Author

O autorze

Hubert van den Bergh has worked in the City for the past decade. A language enthusiast, he was awarded an academic scholarship from Oxford University, where he studied Modern Languages. Follow Hubert on Twitter @soundclever.