Language & Linguistics

The vocabulary of past times, no longer used in English, is always fascinating, especially when we see how it was pilloried by the satirists of the day. Here we have Victorian high and low society, with its fashionable and unfashionable slang, its class...

Highly original and enjoyable examination of the etymology behind a selection of trades and professions, unearthing intriguing nuggets of historical information along the way. Includes explanations of common surnames; obsolete jobs such as pardoner or...

Encompassing eponyms from medicine, botany, invention, science, fashion, food and literature, this book uncovers the intriguing tales of discovery, mythology, innovation and infamy behind the eponyms we use every day. The perfect addition to any...

Pronunciation governs our regional and social identity more powerfully than any other aspect of spoken language. No wonder, then, that it has attracted most attention from satirists. In this intriguing book, David Crystal shows how our feelings about...

Featuring pets, farmyard animals, big cats and wild beasts, this beautifully presented book is the perfect gift for animal lovers and all those with an interest in this quirky linguistic tradition.We're all familiar with 'a flock of sheep' but what are...

A charm of goldfinches. An ostentation of peacocks. A murder of crows. The English language brims with witty words for flocks of birds! Thought to have originated from hunting manuals, the practice of inventing collective nouns for birds has since...

Contrary to popular belief, the author of the first English dictionary is not Samuel Johnson, but Robert Cawdrey, who published his Table Alphabeticall in 1604 - nearly 150 years before Johnson's dictionary.Here is a real treat for lovers of English -...

Writing and Selling Romantic Comedy Screenplays offers a fresh approach to creating narratives for this ever-changing genre. Moving away from rigid and limited definitions that have evolved out of mainstream genre films, the book embraces a...

From the earliest scratches on stone and bone to the languages of computers and the internet, A History of Writing offers an investigation into the origin and development of writing throughout the world. Illustrated with numerous examples, this...

'Starting from the Bronze Age and ending with modern emails and a possible future of e-books, Steven Fischer's A History of Reading takes in a wonderful diversity of things.' - Nature'It's an exciting story, which the author tells clearly and...

Whether told in the rugby clubs of Wales or the gentlemen's clubs of London, their sharpness and simplicity unites us all. Short, sweet and wickedly clever, they hold a special place in the annals of comedy, and as the rise of Twitter heralds a...

The Craft of Professional Writing is the most complete book ever written about the real-life work of being a writer. It covers topics ranging from business writing (advertising, PR) to commercial work (news reporting, feature writing, blogging,...

This language card is an invaluable tool for anyone who wants to quickly build their command of Japanese vocabulary, and an essential resource for those studying for JLPT N5, N4 and the AP Japanese Language and Culture test.Designed for convenience, this...

This handy Japanese dictionary allows you to look up words quickly and easily-and be understood while speaking. Intended for use by tourists, students, and business people traveling to Japan, the Pocket Japanese Dictionary is an essential tool for...

Mini Japanese Dictionary is the most up-to-date Japanese pocket dictionary available. This dictionary is completely up-to-date with the latest vocabulary for IT, smartphones and social media. It is the perfect dictionary to take with you when...

A handy Japanese phrasebook and guide to the Japanese language, Survival Japanese contains basic vocabulary necessary for getting around. This book contains all the necessary words and phrases for speaking Japanese in any kind of...

This is an introductory guide and workbook to writing Japanese Katakana. Anybody who is able to master English, with its irregular spellings and idiosyncratic pronunciations, is more than equipped to master written Japanese. The hiragana and katakana...

 Put simply, practice is the most effective method of mastering written Japanese. The large, open format of Writing Japanese Hiragana invites the student to pick up a pencil and get started! Two phonetic syllabaries,...

Everything you need to learn 200 everyday Japanese kanji characters is here in this boxed kit! Flash cards are an essential tool in memorizing words when you are learning a new language. In Japanese Kanji Flash Cards Kit, Volume 2,...

George Orwell's essay examines the power of language to shape political ideas. It is about the importance of writing concisely, clearly and precisely and the dangers to our ability to think when language, especially political language, is...

A practical and compact guide to writing for professionalsWriting is an essential skill in today's workplace. From messaging platforms and social media to traditional forms of communication like memos and reports, we rely on words more than ever. Given...

This best-selling Japanese textbook is a user-friendly guide for beginners designed for use in a classroom or for self-study. It adopts a very different approach from other Japanese language books-teaching you the underlying sentence structures and...

Everything you need to learn the 200 basic Japanese kanji characters is here in this boxed kit! Flash cards are an essential tool in memorizing words when you are learning a new language. In Japanese Kanji Flash Cards Kit, Volume 1, you'll get all the...

Age range 12+Planning a school or amateur Shakespeare production? The best way to experience the plays is to perform them, but getting started can be a challenge: The complete plays are too long and complex, while scene selections or simplified language...

Age range 12+Planning a school or amateur Shakespeare production? The best way to experience the plays is to perform them, but getting started can be a challenge: The complete plays are too long and complex, while scene selections or simplified language...

'Did you keep a list of the words coined by Covid? Wayne Grady did! They're deftly woven into a journal/timeline, taking us through two years of surrealism and limbo.' - Margaret AtwoodThis exploration of the many new terms of...

Writing is, and always will be, an act defined by failure. The best plan is to just get used to it.Failure is a topic discussed in every creative writing department in the world, but this is the book every beginning writer should have on their shelf to...

**Winner, Screen Research Network Outstanding Monograph Award, 2022**Telling a story is simple, right? You take a 'hero' and send them on a 'journey'. There's a beginning, middle and an end.But what if your story doesn't fit into that basic...

'Beauty is good, but coin is better. You can't eat artistic integrity. It tastes like sawdust.'This gonzo guide is a lesson in the practicalities of writing: how to be productive, professional and maybe one day even pay the rent. Topics covered...

EGYPTIAN ARABIC: Easy Stories With English Translations is a fun yet challenging collection of simple, short stories aimed at both young and adult learners of the spoken language of Egypt.Designed with high-beginners to low-intermediate learners in mind,...

This is a practical-and encouraging-how-to book from a long-time teacher of personal and family history writing. Katie Funk Wiebe helps beginning memoir writers get started collecting the stories of their lives. She gives hints for recalling distant...

"High-Value Writing: Real Strategies for Real-World Writing" helps readers manage the writing challenges they face at work and elsewhere in life. Many of us haven't talked about writing since school, but workplace writing has different requirements. How...

Create your liberated literary utopia When your dream and creative passion is to write, how do you succeed without selling out or selling yourself short? Ariel Gore has spent her life solving this puzzle, writing and organising her way towards a creative...

Structure a writing process by learning about brainstorming and drafting Want to write a book? Half the battle is finding a practice that works for you. Successful author and creativity expert Jessie Kwak is here to help you do just that-and have fun...

Your brand is unique. Your website content should be, too.Many businesses believe they know what sets their brand apart from the competition, only to discover they aren't connecting with their audience. With Content is King as your guide, you'll uncover...

Nora Ephron was one of the most popular, accomplished, and beloved writers in American journalism and film.Nora Ephron: A Biographyis the first comprehensive portrait of the Manhattan-born girlwho forged a path of her own, earning accolades and adoration...

Now that you have your big idea, how will you find and convince your first investor? You need a pitch deck, of course-the perfect set of slides to convince investors to back you and your venture. But a pitch deck isn't merely a business plan put into...

David Morrow and Anthony Weston build on Weston's acclaimed A Rulebook for Arguments to offer a complete textbook for a course in critical thinking or informal logic. The third edition of Workbook contains the entire text of the recent fifth...

In just thirteen brief, accessible chapters, this engaging little book takes 'absolute beginners' from the most basic questions about the language (e.g., what does a classical Chinese character look like?) to reading and understanding selections from...

From academic writing to personal and public discourse, the need for good arguments and better ways of arguing is greater than ever before.This timely fifth edition of A Rulebook for Arguments sharpens an already-classic text, adding updated examples and...

A Sense of Dread features three main sections. 1) A detailed examination of the biological, psychological, and cultural bases of fear. What fears do we share with animals? What fears are uniquely human? What fears have we learned from our culture? From...

Through a "Crazy" approach in writing the feature screenplay, the first half of the book guides the reader in how to create and develop: Story Idea, Characters, One Page Step Outline, and the solid script. In the second half, the book covers professional...

This groundbreaking guide describes six seemingly different popular movies and genres (Skyfall, The Avengers, The Hangover, A Beautiful Mind, The Conjuring, Gone Girl) and shows screenwriters how they all follow the exact same 120 Universal Story Beats...

Master of the Cinematic Universe is a guide to the future of trans-media storytelling. Content creators of every flavor are constantly needing to expand the mediums they can work in. This volume serves as a resource for using the timeless truths of story...

A handy supplement to studying characters in class or independently that teaches useful tricks for remembering words and tones.From one of the authors of Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar comes Speak and Read Chinese, a simple,...

Widely seen as among the most influential Italian thinkers of all time, Antonio Gramsci's highly original Marxism continues to be studied across the globe, even after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Gramsci and Languages offers an explanation of this...

In (Don't) Stop Me If You've Heard This Before, Peter Turchi combines personal narrative and close reading of a wide range of stories and novels to reveal how writers create the fiction that matters to us. Building on his much-loved Maps of the...

On its own, or in conjunction with a variety of free online resources-grammar and vocabulary exercises, pronunciation drills, and more-this accurate and well-organized book is the ideal reference for students of Spanish at any level.