Henry Hitchings
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
Journalist and theater critic Hitchings (The Language Wars) takes up the curious study of proper English behavior in his latest book. Manners matter to the English, yet the Daily Mail reported a study in 2008 "claiming that bad manners were the biggest problem facing society." Part social history, part cultural critique, the book moves humorously from the ancient to the modern with pithy anecdotes and amusing factoids. In the medieval court of Henry...
Author
Language
English
Description
By the early eighteenth century, France and Italy had impressive lexicons, but there was no authoritative dictionary of English. Sensing the deficit, and impelled by a mixture of national pride and commercial expedience, the prodigious polymath Samuel Johnson embraced the task, turning over the garret of his London home to the creation of his own giant dictionary.
Johnson imagined that he could complete the job in three years. But, the complexity...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Words are essential to our everyday lives. An average person spends his or her day enveloped in conversations, e-mails, phone calls, text messages, directions, headlines, and more. But how often do we stop to think about the origins of the words we use? Have you ever thought about which words in English have been borrowed from Arabic, Dutch, or Portuguese? Try admiral, landscape, and marmalade, just for starters.
The Secret Life of Words is a wide-ranging...