The unmatched guide—and perfect gift—for stymied scribes and working wordsmiths everywhere, now expanded and updated.A singular and indispensable reference tool, The Describer's Dictionary—now expanded and updated—has served for over twenty years as the go-to resource for writers who are determined to capture the world in just the right words.The dictionary uses a unique reverse definition-to-term format that makes it easy to zero in on the term yo...

A cornucopia of spelling challenges—from the deceptively simple to the truly vexing—for good, better, and exceptional spellers (or those who want to be).So You Think You Can Spell? is a handy way to go one on one, pencil to paper, against hard, harder, and heartless words. The challenges vary from three- and five-word mini-quizzes to fifty-worders, from tests of quite familiar (but ever misspelled) words to those rife with vowel, consonant, or silent-lette...

"Like animals, plants and book reviewers, words can become extinct, but Grambs is here to salvage the most missed of the lexical dinosaurs."—Patricia Holt, San Francisco ChronicleWe often hear about the richness of the English language, how many more words it contains than French or German. And yet modern desk dictionaries are the result of a paring away of that glory, so that merely standard, functional, current words remain. The price we pay for such con...

A special 10th anniversary edition of Roy Peter Clark's bestselling guide to writing, featuring five bonus tools.Ten years ago, Roy Peter Clark, America's most influential writing teacher, whittled down almost thirty years of experience in journalism, writing, and teaching into a series of fifty short essays on different aspects of writing. In the past decade, Writing Tools has become a classic guidebook for novices and experts alike and remains one of the...

In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century ('roe', in case you are wondering). Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient words ('loaf') to cutting edge ('twittersphere') and spanning the indispen...

A fully revised and updated edition with writing prompts and challenges in every chapterToday’s writers need more spunk than Strunk: whether it's the Great American e-mail, Madison Avenue advertising, or Grammy Award-winning rap lyrics, memorable writing must jump off the page. Copy veteran Constance Hale is on a mission to make creative communication, both the lyrical and the unlawful, an option for everyone.With its crisp, witty tone, Sin and Synt...

Have you ever wondered where terms like ‘end of your tether’, ‘gets my goat’ or ‘letting ones hair down’ come from? Or why we call some people ‘geezers’, ‘sugar daddies’ or ‘lounge lizards’? Or where the words ‘eavesdropping’, ‘nickname’ and ‘D-Day’ come from? They are just a few of the many words and phrases that language expert Max Cryer examines in this fact-filled and fun new book. Max explains where these curious expressions come from, what they mean and how they are used. Along the w...

For word nerds and grammar geeks, a witty guide to the most commonly mispronounced words, along with their correct pronunciations and pithy forays into their fascinating etymologies and histories of use and misuse.With wit and good humor, this handy little book not only saves us from sticky linguistic situations but also provides fascinating cocktail-party-ready anecdotes. Entries reveal how to pronounce boatswain like an old salt on the deck of a ship, trompe ...

"Very much a manual for the 21st century . . . a welcome addition to the bookshelf of anyone who cares about language-and is willing to argue about it." — New York Times Book ReviewEarly in the history of English, the words "grammar" and "glamour" meant the same thing: the power to charm. Roy Peter Clark, author of Writing Tools, aims to put the glamour back in grammar with this fun, engaging alternative to stuffy instructionals. In this practical ...

“We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don’t want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets.”With wit and irreverence, lexicographer Kory Stamper cracks open the obsessive world of dictionary writing, from the agonizing decisions about what to define and how to do it to the knotty q...

Knowing every rule and writing with perfect correctness will take your students only so far in their quest for excellence. For, beyond grammar, there's rhetoric -- language use that separates craftspersons from scribblers. Readers, too, must be able to discuss how a writer presents a case or constructs an argument. The higher scores on nearly all state assessments and college entrance exam rubrics demand knowledge of rhetorical devices and their effects. When your students are ready to g...

Do you cringe when a talking head pronounces “niche” as NITCH? Do you get bent out of shape when your teenager begins a sentence with “and”? Do you think British spellings are more “civilised” than the American versions? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re myth-informed.In Origins of the Specious, word mavens Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman reveal why some of grammar’s best-known “rules” aren’t—and never were—rules at all. This playfull...