Suitable for scholars, students and actors, this book contains glosses and quotes for over 14,000 words that could be misunderstood by modern audience. It features different panels that look at such areas of Shakespeare's language as greetings, swear-words and terms of address.

This is the definitive survey of the English language - in all its forms. Crystal writes accessibly about the structure of the language, the uses of English throughout the world and finally he gives a brief history of English. The book has been fully revised and there is a fascinating new chapter on 'The effect of technology' on the English language. 'Illuminating guided tour of our common treasure by one of its most lucid and sensible professionals' The Times 'A splendid blend of erudition and entertainment' THES

The story of battles--both past and present--surrounding English language usage, The Fight for English explores why millions of people feel linguistically inferior. Unhappy with the "zero tolerance" approach to punctuation offered by Lynn Truss's Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, David Crystal offers a view of the subject that is much more balanced. Instead of answering the claims made by other manuals of English usage, Crystal provides an explanation and analysis of the genre as a whole.
Crystal weaves an intricate and engaging account that traces the history of the English language and its...

"Lexicography is not just an exercise in linguistic accounting," writes preeminent English language scholar David Crystal in this exceptionally lively and erudite little book. "It is a voyage of lexical exploration and discovery."
In Words, Words, Words, Crystal takes readers on a fascinating linguistic adventure, exploring the English language in all its oddity, complexity, and ever-changing beauty. Traveling from word origins and word evolution to wordgangs, wordrisks, wordplay, wordgames and beyond, Crystal shares his immense knowledge of, and equally immense delight in, language. He...

In recent years, the Internet has come to dominate our lives. E-mail, instant messaging and chat are rapidly replacing conventional forms of correspondence, and the Web has become the first port of call for both information enquiry and leisure activity. How is this affecting language? There is a widespread view that as 'technospeak' comes to rule, standards will be lost. In this book, David Crystal argues the reverse: that the Internet has encouraged a dramatic expansion in the variety and creativity of language. Covering a range of Internet genres, including e-mail, chat, and the Web, this...

Steven Pinker meets Bill Bryson in this landmark exploration of language.

In the author's own words, "How Language Works is not about music, cookery, or sex. But it is about how we talk about music, cookery, and sex-or, indeed, anything at all." Language is so fundamental to everyday life that we take it for granted. But as David Crystal makes clear in this work of unprecedented scope, language is an extremely powerful tool that defines the human species.

Crystal offers general readers a personal tour of the intricate workings of language. He moves effortlessly from big...

Profiling has been acknowledged as a major contribution to the treatment of language disorder. First developed with reference to grammatical disability, profiling is extended in this book to cover segmental phonology, prosody and semantics. The book also includes a revised version of the grammatical profiling procedure, LARSP.

You speak a language that I understand not. Hermione s words to Leontes in The Winter s Tale are likely to ring true with many people reading or watching Shakespeare s plays today. For decades, people have been studying Shakespeare s life and times, and in recent years there has been a renewed surge of interest into aspects of his language. So how can we better understand Shakespeare? How did he manipulate language to produce such an unrivaled body of work, which has enthralled generations both as theater and as literature? David Crystal addresses these and many other questions in this lively...

Now completely revised and updated, incorporating new words or senses which have developed in linguistics during the past five years, based on recommendations by a team of experts in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics and sociolinguistics.

New features of this fourth edition include the introduction of the WHO distinctions between impairment, disability and handicap, an increased focus on information processing approaches, and revision questions to reinforce student learning.