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The Origins and Development of the English Language, Sixth Edition, continues to focus on the facts of language rather than on any of the various contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of those facts. The presentation is that of fairly traditional grammar and philology, so as not to require students to master a new theoretical approach at the same time they are exploring the intricacies of language history. The focus of the book is on the internal history of the English language: its sounds, grammar, and word stock. That linguistic history is, however, set against the social and cultural background of the changing times. The first three chapter are introductory, treating language in general as well as the pronunciation and orthography of present-day English. The succeeding central six chapters are the heart of the book, tracing the history of the language from prehistoric Indo-European days through Old English, Middle English, and early Modern English up to the present time. The final three chapters deal with vocabulary—the meaning, making, and borrowing of words.

Slang is language with its sleeves rolled up, colorful, pointed, brash, bristling with humor and sometimes with hostility. Now, in The Oxford Dictionary of Slang, John Ayto has brought together over 10,000 slang words and phrases common to 20th-century English, to provide a comprehensive and highly engaging guide to the most outspoken corner of our language. Unlike most such dictionaries, this volume is organized thematically, with slang words gathered under such headings as "the body and its functions" or "sustenance and intoxication." Within each section, the words are listed chronologically, starting with the century's earliest words and phrases and progressing right through to the present day, thus illuminating the development of slang and colloquial language over the last hundred years. Word origins and other interesting features of usage are given wherever possible, as are illustrative quotations from a wide range of authors. A comprehensive A Z index lists all words included in the dictionary, so you can find a particular word quickly. From "five-finger discount" to "forty-rod whiskey," here is an authoritative and up-to-date record of slang throughout the English-speaking world.

From 'shotclog', a Yorkshire term for a companion only tolerated because he is paying for the drinks, to Albanian having 29 words to describe different kinds of eyebrows, the languages of the world are full of amazing, amusing and illuminating words and expressions that will improve absolutely everybody's quality of life. All they need is this book! This bumper volume gathers all three of Adam Jacot de Boinod's acclaimed books about language - The Wonder of Whiffling, The Meaning of Tingo and Toujours Tingo (their fans include everyone from Stephen Fry to Michael Palin) - into one highly entertaining, keenly priced compendium. As Mariella Frostup said 'You'll never be lost for words again!'

This practical series includes a number of specialist titles which help students communicate more effectively. Each book contains over 60 tests and over 500 key words and expressions. They are ideal for class use or self-study.

Contains more than 3000 idioms from British and American English with thousands of examples. There is also information on the variations that idioms undergo so that students may identify them and their meaning even when they do not appear in their standard form.

Although English as a global language did not appear until 1997, it was actually written in 1995, which in 2002 seems a very long time ago, as far as global linguistic developments are concerned. The 1990s were a revolutionary decade, in that respect, with a proliferation of new linguistic varieties arising out of the worldwide implementation of the Internet, an emerging awareness of the crisis affecting the world’s endangered languages, and an increasingly public recognition of the global position of English. Academic publications relating to this last topic seriously increased in number and weight. The largely article-driven literature of previous decades had typically been exploratory and programmatic, restricted to individual situations, anecdotal in illustration, lacking a sociolinguistic frame of reference, and focusing on the written (and usually literary) language. By contrast, the 1990s saw the emergence of a more comprehensive perspective in which spoken varieties became prominent, there was a real increase in the amount of descriptive data, and attempts were made to arrive at explanations and to make predictions of an appropriately general and sociolinguistically informed character.

I could not have written this book without assistance from faculty and students in various English departments around the world. My colleagues at Penn, especially Peter Conn and Max Cavitch, have been among my most thoughtful and well-informed interlocutors. During my time teaching at Kings College, London, I learned much about the specificities of the British system from conversations with Mark Turner, Jo McDonagh, and Gordon McMullan. When he was at the University of Edinburgh, John Frow engaged me in a project of administrative data exchange between the English departments there, at Penn, and at the University of Melbourne. Elizabeth Anderson performed heroic labor in assembling the Penn data for that study, the results of which proved helpful to this book in a number of ways. David Carter arranged for me to make an extended visit to the University of Queensland, where my sense of the situation of English departments in Australia was sharpened by conversations with Nathan Garvey, Roger Osborne, Ian Hunter, and David himself. I also learned much from the Australian and New Zealand scholars at the 2011 SHARP Conference in Brisbane, and especially from Simone Murray of Monash University, who, among other things, explained to me the “Melbourne model.” Henrik Enbohm of the Swedish Writers’ Union invited me to a large gathering of writers, scholars, and translators in Stockholm, where I was able to speak with faculty and graduate students from literature departments in Sweden and elsewhere in Scandinavia. Andrew Shields at the University of Basel provided me with helpful information about English studies in Switzerland and Germany, as did Philipp Schweighauser and Ina Habermann. In Vienna, my Austrian guide was Hanno Biber,and I am grateful to Lianna Giorgi of the ICCR and the Euro- Festival Project for arranging my visit to that city, as well as to Bologna.Most recently, Rudolph Glitz arranged for me to visit the University of Amsterdam and provided clear and detailed answers to my queries regarding English studies in the Netherlands. For helping me to learn something about English departments in China, I owe a particular debt to Danling Li, my tireless guide and native informant in Beijing, who has continued to assist me back in Philadelphia. Wang Ning arranged my visit to Tsinghua University and set up a series of meetings and meals there; Shen Anfeng gave me a most informative tour of the campus. Mao Liang arranged my visit to Peking University, where he, Ding Hongwei, Thomas Rendall, and Shen Dan all patiently answered my many questions about their students, curriculums, teaching methods, and funding arrangements. Zhang Hongxia was a charming and informative guide in Shanghai. Junsong Chen of Shanghai International Studies University led me on a most enlightening tour of the English literature section of the SISU bookstore. He Weiwen, vice dean of the School of Foreign Languages at Shanghai Jiaotong University, hosted me on his campus, where I enjoyed helpful discussions with him and Wang Zhenhua. Sun Jian, the chair of English at Fudan University, generously made time for me in the middle of a busy week. My visit to Nanjing University was especially productive, and Liu Haiping did me great service in arranging for meetings with groups of administrators, faculty, and graduate students. Especially helpful was the participation of Yang Jincai, the dean of the School of Foreign Studies, and Gao Wei, Zhu Gang, Zhao Wenshu, Zhu Xuefeng, Hu Jing, and Fan Hao. Finally, Phoebe Liu, my student at Penn, translated Chinese documents and websites for me, and canvassed her friends at universities in China for information that we could not find online. No one has assisted me more with this book than David Dunning, who prepared all the charts and contributed much clarity of thought to the task of gathering and analyzing the statistical data. David also read the book in manuscript, steering me around numerous mistakes, as did the copyeditor Cheryl Adam at a later stage in the process. Fraser Sutherland worked rapidly to prepare an index. Aileen Castell was a superbly efficient project manager. Emma Bennett is the editor who originally encouraged me to write the book for her Manifesto series, and Ben Thatcher kept the projectmoving forward despite my habitual dodges, detours, and delays. None of these people will fully agree with the analysis and arguments in the book. Nor do they share responsibility for whatever errors of fact and flaws of reasoning it contains. But the opportunity to discuss with them the present circumstances and possible futures of a discipline in which we are all invested has greatlyenriched my understanding and enlivened my professional life these past few years.

If you already speak English, but now would like to start speaking even better, then the bestselling book & audio CD set Speak English Like an American is for you. This set is designed to help native speakers of any language speak better English. Over 300 of the most-used American English idioms and phrases are presented in engaging dialogue, with plenty of usage examples, illustrations, and lots of exercises -- with convenient answer key -- to help you learn the material. The audio CD includes all of the dialogues. Ideal for self-study as well as for ESL classroom use. A fun and effective way to improve your conversational English! Great for TOEFL study too -- learn many of the expressions you'll find on the exam in a fun and engaging way.