Can I Have a Word with You? - Softcover

In his fifth book about language, Howard Richler moves from A to Z with a specifically chosen word for every letter of the alphabet. What especially intrigues him is how words come to mean what they mean, how they lose some meanings and gain others. Always humorous, Richler invites readers into the intimacy of language and allows us to delight in the ever-shifting glories of English.Not since Lynn Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves has a book about language been so hilarious and informative. This book is a must not only for the bookshelves of all logophiles, but also as the bible for the many family members and friends whose get-togethers often spark lively linguistic argument."Howard Richler is an intoxicated and intoxicating wordaholic who gets unrepentantly high on all flavors, savors, bouquets, and proofs of words. He is a genuinely certified verbivore who feasts on words. "—Richard Lederer, author of Anguished English, Crazy English, and The Miracle of Language.

Howard Richler is a long-time language journalist who has written four books on language: Global Mother Tongue, The Eight Flavours of English (Vehicule Press, 2007), A Bawdy Language: How a Second-Rate Language Slept Its Way to the Top ( Stoddart, 1999), Take My Words, a Wordaholic s Guide to the English Language (Ronsdale Press, 1996), and The Dead Sea Scroll Palindromes (Robert Davies Publishing, 1995). Richler writes a language column for the Montreal Gazette. He makes his home on Montreal.