Winner of the HRH Duke of Edinburgh English Speaking Union English Language Book Award 2006. An award winning language book, this is a lively and engaging expose on the foreign words and phrases that populate our language.
Winner of the HRH Duke of Edinburgh English Speaking Union English Language Book Award 2006. An award winning language book, this is a lively and enga...
Born as a Germanic tongue with the arrival in Britain of the Anglo-Saxons in the early medieval period, heavily influenced by Norman French from the 11th century, and finally emerging as modern English from the late Middle Ages, the English language has grown to become the linguistic equivalent of a superpower, and is now sometimes described as the world's lingua franca. Worldwide some 380 million people speak English as a first language and some 600 million as a second language. A staggering one billion people are believed to be learning it. English is the premier international language...
Born as a Germanic tongue with the arrival in Britain of the Anglo-Saxons in the early medieval period, heavily influenced by Norman French from the 1...
War words have embedded themselves in our collective psyche; British politicians are fond of invoking the 'Dunkirk spirit' whenever the country is faced with major crisis or even minor adversity, and Roosevelt's famous description of Pearl Harbor as 'a date which will live in infamy' was echoed by many US commentators after the 9/11 attacks.
So far, so familiar. Or is it? How many of us know, for instance, that 'Keep Calm and Carry On', far from achieving its morale-boosting aim, was considered at the time to be deeply patronizing by the people it was directed at, and so had only...
War words have embedded themselves in our collective psyche; British politicians are fond of invoking the 'Dunkirk spirit' whenever the country is ...
What is the shade of difference between Sod's Law and Murphy's Law? What is the Helsinki Bus Station Theory? What part do the McNaughton Rules and the Miranda Law play in criminal justice?
Plenty of books claim to tell you how to succeed in life, love or business with infallible sets of guidelines and self-help principles, but have nothing to say about the laws - often hidden ones - which really govern our lives. Skyscrapers, Hemlines and the Eddie Murphy Rule is an anthology of the many quirky, useful or entertaining rules and principles, which, if they are well known, crop...
What is the shade of difference between Sod's Law and Murphy's Law? What is the Helsinki Bus Station Theory? What part do the McNaughton Rules and ...
Once upon a time, the worst words you could utter were short, simple and tended to be four letters in length. Now things are more complicated. To be insulted as a 'snowflake' or an 'expert' is arguably worse than being called a **** or a **** or even a ****. So what are today's 'bad words' and how are they different from yesterday's taboo expressions? This entertaining guide to the shifting sands of bad language is indispensable in an increasingly divided world in which abuse becomes ever more widespread and vituperative. Philip Gooden shows how and why taboo words and contentious...
Once upon a time, the worst words you could utter were short, simple and tended to be four letters in length. Now things are more complicated. To be i...
