ISBN: 9780195106923 - speaking freely: a guided tour of american english from plymouth rock to silicon valley (15 Ergebnisse)

Hardback. Zustand: Very Good. How in the world could a loud mouth turn into a trombone and then become a bazooka? With words, anything is possible, especially if they happen to be American words. The continuous influx of immigrants with their distinctive dialects, the impulse to improvise and experiment, and the relative freedom from rigid social restraints all make America the perfect place for language to percolate, to take on ever-changing shapes and textures and flavors, and to produce an inexhaustible supply of expressive possibilities. In the case of bazooka, we begin with a Dutch word, bazoo, meaning loud mouth, move to an American comedian, Bob Burns, who called his homemade trombone a bazooka, and end with a U.S. Army Major who saw Burns's act and commandeered the word to name a new anti-tank rocket launcher you could hold on your shoulder. Now, in Speaking Freely, Anne H. Soukhanov, author of the Word Watch column in the Atlantic Monthly and one of America's leading lexicographers, invites us into the irresistible world of words. Drawing on Stuart Berg Flexner's two most popular books--I Hear America Talking and Listening to America--and adding 40 per cent new material that covers the enormous changes in language over the past twenty years, Soukhanov provides a sweeping look at the richness and astonishing variety of American English. Here we discover not only the origin and history of many of our most delightful words but also the changing cultural conditions that produced them. With chapters on Americanisms, cyberspace, advertising, fighting words, fitness, geography, economics, sex, crime, gender, generation gaps, and many other subjects, Speaking Freely covers the whole spectrum of language in America from the Pilgrims to the present. In the chapter on American's love affair with booze, for instance, we have a rollicking history of all the delectable words we've devised to describe the condition of drunkenness and its insalubrious effects. If, for example, you were to find yourself frequently groggified, half-shaved, full as a fiddler's fart, balmy, owly-eyed, pifflicated, comboozelated, tanglefooted, ossified, petrified, snockered, or wazzocked, you would often suffer the jim-jams, the jitters, the heebie-jeebies, or the screaming meamies the next day, and would eventually come to be seen as an elbow-bender, a guzzler, a rumhead, swiller, or tosspot. Speaking Freely also explains the droves of new expressions entering our vocabularies--the recent concern with ecology giving us such words as biodiversity, ecofriendly, and chloroflurocarbons, and the rise of the personal computer creating a plethora of distinctive terms, from floppy disk, homepage, and hackers to flammage, spam campaigns, barfogenesis, clickstream, cobweb site, cybercreep, and vaporware. Beautifully printed, with over 400 illustrations and a generous offering of quotations from Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain to Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Hardwick, and many others, Speaking Freely takes the lid off the American language and shows us where it is, where it's been, and why it's ours.…

Hardcover. Zustand: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.

Hardcover. Zustand: As New. No Jacket. Pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds of any kind. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.

Hardcover. Zustand: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.

Hardcover. Zustand: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.

Hardcover. Zustand: Very Good. 1st. With dust jacket. It's a well-cared-for item that has seen limited use. The item may show minor signs of wear. All the text is legible, with all pages included. It may have slight markings and/or highlighting.

Zustand: Very Good. First Edition, First Printing. Former library copy. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.…

Zustand: Very Good. First Edition, First Printing. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Zustand: Very Good. Very Good condition. Good dust jacket. A copy that may have a few cosmetic defects. May also contain light spine creasing or a few markings such as an owner's name, short gifter's inscription or light stamp. NOT AVAILABLE FOR SHIPMENT OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED STATES.

Hardcover. Zustand: Very Good+. Zustand des Schutzumschlags: Very Good+. Light shelfwear on covers and spine on dust jacket and boards. ; 13.0 X 8.6 X 1.7 inches; 480 pages fmc2%262D.

hardcover. Zustand: Fine copy in fine dust jacket. 1st. 4to, 472 pp. Profusely illustrated (illustrator).

Hard Cover. Zustand: Near Fine. Near Fine. First Edition First Printing. NON price-clipped dust jacket [$ 39.95], clean, crisp, colors bright, minimal display wear. Complete number line at copyright page. Pages [472 including index] clean, unmarked, binding tight and square. Illustrated throughout with B&W art reproductions and photographs. White boards, clean, navy cloth spine, bright gilt lettering. All books are in my smoke free & climate controlled shop and will have qualities and/or flaws described. Domestic & international shipping includes tracking information. Size: 4to - over 9 3/4 - 12" Tall. Various Artists & Photographers (illustrator).…

Hardcover. 4to. Black cloth spine with gilt lettering and cream paper over boards, pictorial dust jacket. vii, 472pp. Numerous illustrations. Fine/fine. Superb, tight first edition of this massive overview.

Zustand: Very Good.

4°, Halbleinen. Zustand: Gut. First Printing. 472 Seiten, im Großformat mit zahlreichen s/w Illustrationen. Einband mit geringen Gebrauchs-, Lese- und oder Lagerspuren. Ecken und Kanten kaum bestoßen oder berieben. Schnitt minimal fleckig. Seiten können altersbedingt etwas nachgedunkelt sein. Für die Zeit gut erhaltenes Exemplar, im OSU mit leichten Randläsuren. W15 Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 2401.…