Dave Gibbons

John Gibbons is an environmental journalist and commentator who has been speaking about climate change in Ireland for over a decade. The Lie of the Land is his first book.

John Gibbons

Stella Gibbons was born in London in 1902. She went to the North London Collegiate School and studied journalism at University College, London. She then worked for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. Stella Gibbons is the author of twenty-five novels, three volumes of short stories, and four volumes of poetry. Her first novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) was an immediate success and won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. Among her works are Nightingale Wood (1938), The Bachelor (1944), Westwood (1946), and Starlight (1967). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. Stella Gibbons died in 1989.

Stella Gibbons

Edward Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

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Arik Kershenbaum

Why Animals Talk is a scientific journey through the untamed world of animal communication. From the majestic howls of wolves and the enchanting chatter of parrots to the melodic clicks of dolphins and the spirited grunts of chimpanzees, these diverse and seemingly bizarre expressions are far from mere noise. In fact, they hold secrets that we are just beginning to decipher. 
 
For example, wolves – just like humans – possess unique accents that distinguish their howls; gibbons have different alarm-calls for leopards and snakes, and sing romantic duets with their partners; and dolphins not only give themselves names but respond excitedly to recordings of the whistles of long-lost companions. 
 
Chapter by chapter and animal by animal, Kershenbaum draws on his extensive research and observations of animals in the wild to explain the science behind why animals are communicating. Also revealing profound insights into our own language and why it is different, In doing so, Why Animals Talks tells the comprehensive story of communication and how it works across the entire animal kingdom.

Why Animals Talk

The New Science of Animal Communication

Christopher Fowler

'A delight . . . a glorious, witty and life-affirming ragbag of autobiography, cultural commentary and hard-won wisdom.' ANDREW TAYLOR, author of The Shadows of London 
 
'Perceptive, wise and illuminating . . . an unmissable farewell.' Barry Forshaw, FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
'The most hilarious, life-affirming book you&rsquo;ll read this year.' SAGA magazine 
 
'Wit and wisdom that make every page turn . . . what a fine talent the world has lost.' STARBURST 
 
This is the memoir Christopher Fowler always wanted to write about 'writing'. 
 
It's the story of how a young bookworm growing up in a house where there was nothing to read but knitting pamphlets and motorcycle manuals became a writer - a 'word monkey' - and pursued a sort of career in popular fiction. And it's a book full of brilliant insights into the pleasures and pitfalls of his profession, dos and don'ts for would-be writers, and astute observations on favourite (and not-so-favourite) novelists. 
 
But woven into this hugely entertaining and inspiring reflection on a literary life is an altogether darker thread. In Spring 2020, just as the world went into lockdown, Chris was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And yet there is nothing of the misery memoir about Word Monkey. Past and present intermingle as, in prose as light as air, he relates with wry humour and remarkable honesty what he knows will be the final chapter in his story. 
 
Deeply moving, insightful and surprisingly funny, this is Christopher Fowler's life-affirming account of coming to terms with his own mortality. 
 
'A remarkable book by a remarkable writer: amazingly entertaining and informative and also, for obvious reasons, one of the most moving.' SIMON MASON, author of the DI Wilkins Mysteries 
 
'Wonderful . . . there is no bitterness here, but a hearty celebration of how art defines a life, with dark humour on the right occasions and the deliberate aim to leave a positive message . . . his enthusiasm is infectious and sobering when you are aware that he was dying as he wrote these pages.' Maxim Jacubowski, CRIME TIME

Word Monkey

Sarah Ogilvie

**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024** 
 
‘Unmissable’ Stephen Fry 
'A delight' Katherine Rundell 
‘Illuminating’ Susie Dent 
'Brilliant' Philippa Perry 
'Enthralling' Jeanette Winterson 
 
What do three murderers, Karl Marx's daughter and a vegetarian vicar have in common? 
They all helped create the Oxford English Dictionary. 
 
The Oxford English Dictionary has long been associated with elite institutions and Victorian men. But the Dictionary didn't just belong to the experts; it relied on contributions from members of the public. By 1928, its 414,825 entries had been crowdsourced from a surprising and diverse group of people, from astronomers to murderers, naturists, pornographers, suffragists and queer couples. 
 
Lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie dives deep into previously untapped archives to tell a people's history of the OED. Here, she reveals, for the first time, the full story of the making of one of the most famous books in the world - and celebrates the extraordinary efforts of the Dictionary People. 
 
'An astonishing book' Sunday Times 
 
'Utterly fascinating, entertaining, astonishing and as clever as a box of monkeys ... I completely love it' Joanna Lumley 
 
‘A fascinating and delightful exploration of the Victorian world … Wonderful’ Nicola Shulman, TLS Podcast 
 
** A Financial Times, TLS and Daunt Books Book of the Year **

The Dictionary People

The unsung heroes who created the Oxford English Dictionary

Albert Jack

Did you know that an assassin is a hashish-eater and a yokel a country woodpecker? 
 
That Dr Mesmer mesmerised patients back to health or that Samuel Pepys enjoyed a good game of handicap? 
 
While we're at it, what have spondulics to do with spines or lawyers with avocados? 
 
In It's a Wonderful Word, bestselling author Albert Jack collects over 500 of the strangest, funniest-sounding and most delightful words in the English language, and traces them back to their often puzzling origins. While brushing up on your gibberish or gobbledygook, discover why bastards should resent travelling salesmen, why sheets should remain on tenterhooks and why you should never set down a tumbler before finishing your drink. 
 
From blotto to bamboozle and from claptrap to quango, Albert Jack's addictive anecdotes bring the world's most colourful language to life and are guaranteed to surprise and entertain.

It's a Wonderful Word

The Real Origins of Our Favourite Words

Natalie Goldberg

Wild Mind is for everyone who writes or wants to write. Natalie Goldberg teaches a Zen-like method that will take you straight to the source of creative power, to the mind that is 'raw, full of energy, alive and hungry'. These pages are packed with wise, practical and witty advice on: 
 
--how to find time to write 
--how to discover your personal style 
--how to make statements come alive 
--how to overcome writer's block 
 
Wild Mind also offers a larger vision of the writer's task: balancing daily responsibilities with a commitment to writing; knowing when to take risks as a writer and as a human being; coming to terms with failure and loss; and learning self acceptance - both in life and in art.

Wild Mind

Living the Writer's Life

Tony Thorne

Are you a bobo or a wombat? Are you tempted by infobia or to kick dead whales up the beach? If your answer to any of these questions is 'What are you talking about?', then you definitely need a copy of Shoot the Puppy. Amusing, informative and newly updated for 2007, it guides the reader through the ever-growing heap of contemporary jargon from around the English-speaking world, showing where it comes from, what it means, and what it tells us about our contemporary world.

Shoot the Puppy

A Survival Guide to the Curious Jargon of Modern Life

Umberto Eco

How much do our perceptions of things depend on our cognitive ability, and how much on our linguistic resources? Where, and how, do these two questions meet? Umberto Eco undertakes a series of idiosyncratic and typically brilliant explorations, starting from the perceived data of common sense, from which flow an abundance of 'stories' or fables, often with animals as protagonists, to expound a clear critique of Kant, Heidegger and Peirce. And as a beast designed specifically to throw spanners in the works of cognitive theory, the duckbilled platypus naturally takes centre stage.

Kant And The Platypus

Alex Games

Discover the fascinating stories behind the words and phrases we use every day.   English is now the worlds most popular second language, understood by over 700 million people across the globe. Its use is amazingly broad: not only is it the language of Chaucer and Shakespeare, but also of hip-hop, international business and the internet (over 80% of home pages are in English).    So where exactly do English words come from? They come from everywhere. English is a vast, rambling conglomeration of words and phrases from a huge variety of times and places, and every word has its own intriguing history.     Balderdash &amp; Piffle is a guidebook  an entertaining look at what falls out of the chaotic family tree of English words when you uproot it and give it a damn good shake. Shaking the tree is writer, humourist and word-sleuth Alex Games.    If youve ever wondered who first used cuppa in print, what language gave us shampoo, when we started saying window, where minging comes from, what Shakespeare had to say about geeks and why berk is really, really rude, youll find it all (and much more) inside. Youll also have the chance to do your own word-sleuthing, through the BBC Wordhunt appeal. Who knows  if you have written evidence of a bouncy castle from before 1986, you could even re-write history

Balderdash & Piffle

Ben Schott

A language taxonomy for our curious times. Every day we are surrounded by complex, private systems of knowledge and language: some we use ourselves, others we observe or overhear. Every trade, gang, clique, and profession develops a private lexicon of words, signs, and signals to bind its members closer while keeping strangers out. From dog-walkers to spies, sommeliers to gym-goers, typography to graffiti, Schott's Significa decodes the secret languages that surround us. Packed with analysis exploring these taxonomies in all their fascinating detail, photographs and illustrations, this book is a dynamic evolution of the Miscellany concept for our curious times and the key to unlocking the hidden worlds around us.

Schott’s Significa

An Unexpectedly Essential Guide to Language

Stephen Wildish

Grasping how to swear is a crucial skill to any English-speaker, but it can be a tricky business. Owing to the rich and complex history of swearing, a single word can have a host of different meanings – from expressing surprise, excitement, anger, celebration, disgust or simply that you’re fucked off. If you don’t get it right, you could really be in the shit. 
 
How to Swear, by graphic artist and swearing-connoisseur Stephen Wildish, uses all manner of charts and flow diagrams to teach you all you need to know, including: the building blocks of an effective insult; the adverbial uses of various types of animal excrement (horseshit, apeshit etc); and the different parts of speech a swear word can fulfil: ‘Fucking fuck, the fucking fucker’s fucked’. This charming (and rude) book will take you right to the heart of the wondrous world of swearing, with a lot of laughs on the way.

How to Swear

Charlie Croker

Have you ever arrived in a hotel room and been baffled by the information provided? 
Beware of your luggage. 
In your room you will find a minibar which is filled with alcoholics. 
Do not throw urine around. 
 
Have you ever been to a restaurant and wondered what on earth to order? 
Bored Meat Stew 
Lorry Driver Soup 
Kiss Lorraine 
 
Have you ever arrived in an airport and found that the supposedly helpful signs just make you feel more lost? 
You are required to declare all sorts of private things. 
Departure. Bus stop. Car rectal. 
Please buy your ticket consciously. 
 
Charlie Croker has, and in 2006 he gathered together what he thought was the definitive collection of English language howlers for his bestselling book Lost in Translation. But he reckoned without the great British public. Not only was the book a smash hit, it also opened the floodgates to a deluge of emails and letters stuffed full of further mistranslations and mutilated phrases. From a leaflet from the Museum of Rasputin in Russia (which is apparently situated in a house that belonged a pilot fish Zubov) to a song title on a pirated Pink Floyd CD (Come Fartably Numb), the scrambled sentences just kept flooding in. At the same time Charlie has continued his travels and picked up gems of his own. With such a wealth of material, a sequel wasn't just a necessity, it was a public service, and Still Lost in Translation is even more addictive, whimsical and side-splittingly hilarious than the first book.

Still Lost in Translation

More misadventures in English abroad

J. P. Davidson

'The way you speak is who you are and the tones of your voice and the tricks of your emailing and tweeting and letter-writing, can be recognised unmistakably in the minds of those who know and love you.' Stephen Fry 
 
 From feral children to fairy-tale princesses, secrets codes, invented languages - even a language that was eaten! - Planet Word uncovers everything you didn't know you needed to know about how language evolves. Learn the tricks to political propaganda, why we can talk but animals can't, discover 3,000-year-old clay tablets that discussed beer and impotence and test yourself at textese - do you know your RMEs from your LOLs? Meet the 105-year-old man who invented modern-day Chinese and all but eradicated illiteracy, and find out why language caused the go-light in Japan to be blue. From the dusty scrolls of the past to the unknown digital future, and with (heart) the first graphic to enter the OED, are we already well on our way to a language without words? 
 
 In a round-the-world trip of a lifetime, discover all this and more as J. P. Davidson travels across our gloriously, endlessly intriguing multilingual Planet Word.

Planet Word

Lawrence Booth

What's the difference between short leg and deep midwicket? When would you be thinking about bowling a yorker? What's so great about the sound of leather on willow? Cricket&rsquo;s vocabulary is a mixture of jargon and clich&eacute;, poetry and prose, misty-eyed romanticism and old-gits&rsquo; cynicism. Arm-ball to Zooter is a witty guide to the peculiarities of the game, its history and major figures; cricket-lovers might find their own pet hates confirmed; cricket newcomers might be amazed at what cricket-lovers have been up to all these years.

Arm-ball to Zooter

A Sideways Look at the Language of Cricket

Mr Jack has been nimble and he's been quick, searching through the history of nursery rhymes and he's found out all kind of plum tales, just like little Jack Horner. He's unearthed the answers to some very curious questions... 
 
Who were Mary Quite Contrary and Georgie Porgie? How could Hey Diddle Diddle offer an essential astronomy lesson? And if Ring a Ring a Roses isn't about catching the plague, then what is it really about? This ingenious book delves into the hidden meanings of the nursery rhymes and songs we all know so well and discovers all kinds of strange tales ranging from Viking raids to firewalking and from political rebellion to slaves being smuggled to freedom. 
 
Full of vivid illustrations and with each verse reproduced, here are a multitude of surprising stories you won't be able to resist passing on to everyone you know. Your childhood songs and rhymes will never sound the same again.

Pop Goes the Weasel

The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes

Mary Jane Staples

A heart-warming Cockney saga from multi-million copy seller Mary Jane Staples. Perfect for fans of Maggie Ford, Kitty Neale and Katie Flynn. You won't be able to put it down! 
 
READERS ARE LOVING SERGEANT JOE! 
"Another fun read with some surprising twists and turns" - 5 STARS 
"A lovely story, and so funny I couldn't help but burst out laughing at times" - 5 STARS 
"Excellent read" - 5 STARS 
"A brilliant book...Mary Jane Staples brings her characters to life! Excellent!" - 5 STARS 
"Awesome - a lovely fun read" - 5 STARS 
 
*********************************************************************** 
SHE'LL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO KEEP HER FAMILY SAFE FROM HARM... 
 
Everyone likes Sergeant Joe. From the family with whom he has lodgings to the bookseller who employs him in a little lucrative and harmless forgery. He is a universal favourite. 
 
When he bumps into Dolly Smith - quite literally - he meets a girl who makes quite an impression on him. Dolly is quick, lively, and full of cockney cheek. She is also a little frightened - running from a vicious-looking thug and a sinister foreigner who seem to think she has stolen something valuable. 
 
When Joe takes Dolly under his wing he thinks he is just helping her in a momentary predicament. Little does he know his life is going to change forever... For Dolly, bewitching and beguiling - is involved in something quite dangerous...

Sergeant Joe

a delightfully moving, amusing and uplifting Cockney saga that will warm the cockles of your heart

James Morton

An Aladdin's cave of criminal slang as spoken in the UK, America and Australia. If you're scratching or set tripping, if you're viper mad or coming heavy, if the ming are on the wing and you've no idea what any of this means, then you need Gangster Speak. 
 
From the shocking to the ridiculous, Gangster Speak contains over 2,500 linguistic gems: 
Ghosting - the practice of transferring a troublesome prisoner to another establishment during the night without warning 
Hobbit - a prisoner who complies with or sucks up to the system 
Put on armour - layer oneself with magazines to deflect knife wounds in a prison fight 
Hooch - 'illicit liquor' 
A Bernie - a victim who might be armed and prepared to use a weapon, after Bernard Goetz who killed a robber on the subway 
 
Providing a useful guide to the nicknames of criminals, as well as fascinating word histories and multiple definitions for different uses of a word around the globe, with Gangster Speak you'll never be lost for words.

Gangster Speak

A Dictionary of Criminal and Sexual Slang

Philip Dodd

What is the connection between a rather unflattering item of clothing and the French trapeze artist Jules Léotard? Which filling did the Earl of Sandwich opt for when he made his great culinary invention? And was there really a Sir Oswald Binge whose week-long feasts were notorious for their excess? 
The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium answers these and many other questions drawn from the remoter corners of the English language, exploring the lives of an extraordinarily diverse range of people who happen to have one thing in common: by chance or deliberately, they have left their names deeply embedded in the language and consciousness of future generations. Each figure has something to tell us about a moment in history, or a discovery or invention, whether it's László Biró and his pioneering writing implement, or Étienne de Silhouette who, having fallen from grace at the French court, spent much of the later part of his life mournfully cutting out paper shapes. Not to mention the Reverend Robert Lechmere Guppy, fish-discoverer extraordinaire. 
Each life in The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium is quirky and often bizarre. Few of them would merit a footnote, let alone an entry, in the history books. But they all reveal that the prospect of immortality is only a fluke away. In an age of instant 15-minute celebrity, that's a reassuring thought.

The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium

How Jules Leotard, Adolphe Sax, Roy Jacuzzi and co. immortalised their names in the dictionary

Bill Bryson

An anthology of BBC Radio documentaries featuring the bestselling author 
 
Bill Bryson is the world's funniest travel writer, and a master of comic observation. His hugely popular books, spanning topics from linguistics to Shakespeare to the human body, have sold over 16 million copies and been translated into 30 languages, and his 2003 science book A Short History of Nearly Everything won the prestigious Aventis and Descartes prizes. 
 
This sparkling collection features seven BBC Radio programmes that collectively illuminate his personal passions. In The Art of Travel, he talks to Annette Kobak about his memorable journeys around the USA; while in the 6-part series Divided by a Common Language, he scours American history in an attempt to find out why Americans talk and behave differently from British people. Journeys in English, based on his acclaimed book Mother Tongue, sees him romping through the history of Britain in six episodes, to reveal how English became the complex yet world-beating language it is today. 
 
Ramblings: Windsor Great Park finds Bill heading out across the royal park in the company of Clare Balding, as he discusses his love for walking and exploring. As a castaway on Desert Island Discs, he shares the soundtrack of his life with Sue Lawley; and in With Great Pleasure, he selects some of his favourite writing, including Evelyn Waugh's Scoop, a Hardy Boys classic and Three Men in a Boat. Finally, in Bookclub, he chats to James Naughtie and an audience of readers about A Short History of Nearly Everything. 
 
Contents 
 
The Art of Travel: Bill Bryson 
Divided by a Common Language 
Journeys in English 
Ramblings: Windsor Great Park with Bill Bryson 
Desert Island Discs: Bill Bryson 
With Great Pleasure: Bill Bryson 
Bookclub: Bill Bryson 
 
Production credits 
 
The Art of Travel: Bill Bryson 
Presented by Annette Kobak 
Produced by Kate McAII 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 27 January 1991 
 
Divided by a Common Language 
Presented by Bill Bryson 
Produced by Brian King 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 29 July-2 September 1995 
 
Journeys in English 
Written and presented by Bill Bryson 
Produced by Brian King 
 
First broadcast as Mother Tongue on BBC Radio 4, 13 December 1997-17 January 1998 
 
Ramblings: Windsor Great Park with Bill Bryson 
Presented by Clare Balding 
Produced by Lucy Lunt 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 24 September 2015 
 
Desert Island Discs: Bill Bryson 
Presented by Sue Lawley 
Produced by Angie Nehring 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 31 January 1999 
 
With Great Pleasure: Bill Bryson 
Readers: Kerry Shale and Bill Wallis 
Produced by Mary Ward-Lowery 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 30 September 1999 
 
Bookclub: Bill Bryson 
Presented by James Naughtie 
Produced by Dymphna Flynn 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 6 February 2005 
 
©2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

The Bill Bryson BBC Radio Collection

Divided by a Common Language, Journeys in English and more

Lance Parkin

Mark Jones

Inspired by Milton's Paradise Lost and now a major motion picture, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy has captured the imagination of children, adults and the critics alike. Now you can understand the symbols of the alethiometer, revisit the stories and chart the history of Lyra's world in this invaluable companion to the unforgettable novels. 
 
With an enlightening biography of Philip Pullman, outlines and analyses of the novels, audio books, stage play and forthcoming movie, a dictionary of key words from Armoured Bear to Zombi, and a history of Lyra's world, this volume gives crucial further information to all admirers of the timeless books.

Dark Matters

An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Philip Pullman's internationally bestselling His Dark Materials trilogy

Lynne Truss

The BBC Radio 4 series that inspired the bestselling book Eats, Shoots & Leaves 
 
'... It's fair enough that punctuation fans should have the opportunity to hear more words of wisdom from their heroine' - Sunday Times 
 
'Truss presents the arguments for and against the different uses of punctuation in such a humorous way...' - Observer 
 
'It all adds up to lots of memorable, and improving, good fun' - Times 
 
The runaway success of Eats, Shoots & Leaves brought millions of grammar geeks out of the closet and made it cool to care about punctuation. This is the radio series that started it all: five programmes in which Lynne Truss explores changing fashions in punctuation. 
 
She accompanies the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society through Berwick Street Market on a hunt for the 'greengrocer's apostrophe', enters the classroom to hear how children learn punctuation, and finds out whether anyone punctuates text messages. Talking to writers and experts like Fay Weldon and David Crystal, she discovers the origins of the comma in Greek drama and Gregorian chant, considers the case for 'semi-colonic irrigation' and asks how a writer's choice of punctuation expresses his tone of voice.Looking into the future, she wonders if 'emoticons' will put colons, commas and apostrophes on the endangered species list. 
 
Impassioned, informative and always amusing, this is an essential listen for anyone who loves language. 
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 03-31 December 2002

Cutting A Dash

The BBC Radio series that inspired Eats, Shoots & Leaves

Ella Frances Sanders

Ever feel like you are pedalling in the choucroute? Been caught with your beard in the mailbox again? Or maybe you just wish everyone would stop ironing your head? 
 
Speaking in Tongues brings the weird, wonderful and surprising nuanced beauty of language to life with over fifty gorgeous watercolour and ink illustrations. 
 
Here you will find the perfect romantic expression, such as the Spanish tu eres mi media naranja, or 'you are the love of my life, my soulmate', and the bizarre, including dancing bears and broken pots, feeding donkeys sponge cake, a head full of crickets, and clouds and radishes. All encourage new ways of thinking about the world around us, and breathe magnificent life into the everyday. 
 
These phrases from across the world are ageless and endlessly enchanting, passed down through generations. Now they are yours.

Speaking in Tongues

Curious Expressions from Around the World

Ambrose Bierce

<a href="https://shop.penguin.co.uk/collections/book-bundles-modern-classics/?&amp;utm_source=Penguin.co.uk&amp;utm_medium=Linked_text&amp;utm_campaign=Penguin_Modern_Classics_Series_26_06">Choose 3 timeless classics for only £21 over on the Penguin Shop</a>

An incomparable satirist, Ambrose Bierce became the &quot;laughing devil&quot; of the San Francisco news media, for he was about as discreet as a runaway locomotive, according to H.L.Mencken, and nowhere are his uninhibited irony and gift for verse parody more in evidence than in this &quot;dictionary&quot;.

The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary

This second volume of short stories contains more diverse and lively writing from the Spanish-speaking world. Again much of it is from Latin America, Carlos Fuentes being Mexican, Norberto Fuentes Cuban, and the other writers having their roots in Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Colombia and the Argentine. Only Ana Maria Matute is a native of Spain. 
 
This highly entertaining selection of stories, together with a chapter from Mario Vargas Llosa&rsquo;s novel &lsquo;Conversation in the Cathedral&rsquo;, explores stylistic contrasts and gives an insight into the cultural and social milieu of the Spanish-speaking world. With notes on unusual Spanish words and phrases, it will be of great value to English students of the language as well as a helpful companion to Spanish-speaking students of English.

Spanish Short Stories

Elizabeth Little

What can Johnny Cash&rsquo;s lyrics teach us about the little-known Tangut dialect? Is &lsquo;tabernacle&rsquo; really a swear word in Quebecois? Which language has absolutely no verbs? What is Earth&rsquo;s politest insult? And what is biting the wax tadpole actually a translation of?* 
 
Prepare for a hilarious rollercoaster ride through hundreds of well-known, obscure, difficult, dead and even made-up languages. Elizabeth Little has waded through innumerable verb tables in every available mood and tense, untangled up to eighteen cases of noun, and wrestled with all kinds of complicated adjective, participles and glottal stops to bring you the best and most bizarre quirks of the ways people communicate all around the globe. 
 
From the language that has no different word for &lsquo;blue&rsquo; or &lsquo;green&rsquo;, to why Icelanders need official permission to name their children, from what makes a Korean TV hit to what people might think you&rsquo;re saying if you order eggs in Spain, Biting the Wax Tadpole will ensure you&rsquo;re never lost for words again. 
 
*Coca-Cola, would you believe it?

Biting the Wax Tadpole

Misadventures of an Armchair Linguist

Robert Anwood

The English language can be very confusing. But it&rsquo;s not rocket surgery. Damp Squids and Card Sharks is a fascinating suppository of false facts and common errors, a minefield of information. Have we wetted your appetite? Peaked your interest? Are you waiting with baited breath? Or could you care less? Pull your socks together! For all intensive purposes, this is the book for you. This cute, funny book features gorgeous illustrations alongside the 50 amusing malapropisms, mixed metaphors and mondegreens. In one foul swoop you&#39;ll learn why so many people get muddled by the same phrases!

Damp Squids and Card Sharks

A Compendium of Commonly Confused Phrases and Linguistic Muddles

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