#hardcover #nonfiction #english #language #history #linguistics #writing #vocabulary #languagearts #stories 

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Pennsylvania

Why Do We Say It? uncovers the roots of the English language and connects them to their intriguing origins. From idioms to cliches, this comprehensive book shows you the way around the English language The intriguing origins of hundreds of unusual words and expressions are here for your perusal, handily organized in an alphabetical format. Useful for reference or just for browsing, Why Do We Say It? is also a great way to expand your vocabulary and have fun while doing it. This edition makes a wonderful gift for readers, writers, scholars, and students. Uncover the mysteries of the modern English language and share the facts and trivia with your family and friends.

Why Do We Say It? : The Stories Behind the Words, Expressions, and Cliches We Use

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#dictionary #linguistics #cueword
Answers the question: “Now what is that word?”

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Indiana

Find the words on the tip of your tongue

Illustrated Reverse Dictionary

#paperback #nonfiction #reference #writing #language #english #rhyming #poetry #dictionary #linguistics 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary is an indispensable reference companion for anyone who writes verse - whether lyric poet, songwriter or composer of limericks or jingles. Clearly arranged and easy to use, it offers an astonishing wide range of suggestions for rhyming words, from the common and everyday to the more difficult and obscure.

The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary (Penguin Books, 1985)

d3e9accf-549c-4d7d-b8ee-ef1c874cffd6-1

California

Originally published in 1984, this dystopian trilogy--"a pioneering feminist experiment"--is a testament to the power of language and women's collective action (Literary Hub).

In 2205, the 19th Amendment has long been repealed and women are only valued for their utility. The Earth's economy depends on an insular group of linguists who "breed" women to be perfect interstellar translators until they are sent to the Barren House to await death. But instead, these women are slowly creating a language of their own to make resistance possible. Ignorant to this brewing revolution, Nazareth, a brilliant linguist, and Michaela, a servant, both seek emancipation in their own ways. But their personal rebellions risk exposing the secret language, and threaten the possibility of freedom for all.

"This angry feminist text is also an exemplary experiment in speculative fiction, deftly and implacably pursuing both a scientific hypothesis and an ideological hypothesis through all their social, moral, and emotional implications." --Ursula K. Le Guin

"A welcome reminder of the feminist legacies of science fiction. . . . Explores the power of speech, agency, and subversion in a work that is as gripping, troubling, and meaningful today as it has ever been." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Native Tongue

e8870397-6a6a-4786-aec1-376327f3c4e5-1

From the author of The River at Night and Into the Jungle comes a harrowing new thriller set in the unforgiving landscape of the Arctic Circle, as a brilliant linguist struggling to understand the apparent suicide of her twin brother ventures hundreds of miles north to try to communicate with a young girl who has been thawed from the ice alive. Valerie “Val” Chesterfield is a linguist trained in the most esoteric of disciplines: dead Nordic languages. Despite her successful career, she leads a sheltered life and languishes in the shadow of her twin brother, Andy, an accomplished climate scientist stationed on a remote island off Greenland’s barren coast. But Andy is gone: a victim of suicide, having willfully ventured unprotected into 50 degree below zero weather. Val is inconsolable—and disbelieving. She suspects foul play. When Wyatt, Andy’s fellow researcher in the Arctic, discovers a scientific impossibility­—a young girl frozen in the ice who thaws out alive, speaking a language no one understands—Val is his first call. Will she travel to the frozen North to meet this girl, and try to comprehend what she is so passionately trying to communicate? Under the auspices of helping Wyatt interpret the girl’s speech, Val musters every ounce of her courage and journeys to the Artic to solve the mystery of her brother’s death. The moment she steps off the plane, her fear threatens to overwhelm her. The landscape is fierce, and Wyatt, brilliant but difficult, is an enigma. But the girl is special, and Val’s connection with her is profound. Only something is terribly wrong; the child is sick, maybe dying, and the key to saving her lies in discovering the truth about Wyatt’s research. Can his data be trusted? And does it have anything to do with how and why Val’s brother died? With time running out, Val embarks on an incredible frozen odyssey—led by the unlikeliest of guides—to rescue the new family she has found in the most unexpected of places.

Girl in Ice

e25c2ba2-2eff-4d90-87a0-5f9cb9ad2633-1

#paperback #newyorktimesbestseller #linguistics #AfricanAmerican #language #racism

Iowa

Self-Sabotage in Black America

Berkeley linguistics professor John McWhorter, born at the dawn of the post-Civil Rights era, spent years trying to make sense of this question. Now he dares to say the unsayable: racism's ugliest legacy is the disease of defeatism that has infected black America. Losing the Race explores the three main components of this cultural virus: the cults of victimology, separatism, and antiintellectualism that are making blacks their own worst enemies in the struggle for success. More angry than Stephen Carter, more pragmatic and compassionate than Shelby Steele, more forward-looking than Stanley Crouch, McWhorter represents an original and provocative point of view. With Losing the Race, a bold new voice rises among black intellectuals.

Losing the Race

2d574e5e-1097-4e7c-a8fb-db5b24599192-1

#paperbackw #fiction #girlthawedfromice #greenland #icewinds #paperback 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Missouri

A Novel

The sole survivor of a crew sent to explore a new planet, Jesuit priest Emilio Sandoz discovers an alien civilization that raises questions about the very essence of humanity, an encounter that leads Sandoz to a public inquisition and the destruction of his faith. Reader's Guide included. Reissue. 12,500 first printing.

The Sparrow

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#mathematics #math #numbers #symbols #anthropology #culturalhistory #ancienthistory #symbology #linguistics

"The historian of mathematics will find much to interest him here . . . while the casual reader is likely to be intrigued by the author's superior narrative ability." — Library Journal
This book is not only a fascinating introduction to the concept of number and to numbers themselves, hut a multifaceted linguistic and historical analysis of how numbers have developed and evolved in many different cultures. Drawing on evidence from history, literature, philosophy and ethnology, noted German scholar Karl Menninger. recounts the development of numbers both as they are spoken (and written as words) and as symbolic abstract numerals that can he readily manipulated and combined.
Despite the immense erudition the author brings to the topic, he maintains a light tone throughout, presenting much of the information in anecdotal form. Moreover, almost 300 illustrations (photographs and drawings) and many comparative language tables serve to enhance the text. The author begins with a lucid treatment of number sequence and number language, including the formation of number words in both Indo-European and non-IndoEuropean languages, hidden number words and the evolution of the number sequence. He then turns to written numerals and computations: finger counting, folk symbols for numbers, alphabetical numerals, the "German" Roman numerals, the abacus and more. The final section concerns the development of our modem decimal system, with its place notation and zero, based on the Indian number system, and its introduction to the West through the work of the Italian mathematician Fibonacci. The author concludes with a review of spoken numbers and number symbols in China and Japan.
"The book is especially good on early counting and calculating devices: primitive tally sticks, the knotted cords of ancient Peru, the elaborate finger symbols once used for numbers, counting boards with movable counters, and of course the abacus." — Martin Gardner, Book World

Minnesota

A Cultural History of Numbers

Number Words and Number Symbols

Alaska

A Linguistic Excursion into the Five Styles of English Usage 

The Five Clocks

Oregon

Over 1500 Phrases Explored and Explained

An editor of "Roget's Thesaurus" has collected more than 1,500 of the world's favorite cliches, categorizing them according to origin and most common meaning.

Cliches

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#paperback #educational #nonfiction #language #humor #writing #english #grammar #selfhelp #linguistics 

Eats, Shoots and Leaves : The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

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#paperback #semiotics #linguistics #academic #research #communication #cognition 

A Sign is Just a Sign

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#hardcover #language #vintage #linguistics #travel #tourists #global

Defines the principle elements and characteristics of seventeen major languages from all over the world, offering tourists a listing of the important phrases of each. English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Latin, Swahili, Japanese, other languages of Africa and Asia.

This book is in good vintage condition, with no wear to the spine or binding. Pages are clean and unmarked. Dust jacket has a couple little tears and is slightly discolored. There is also a small amount of water damage on the bottom edge of the front cover (see photo). This edition printed in 1961, 216 pp.

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Profiles of the world's chief languages

Talking Your Way Around the World

#paperback #education #textbook #toefl #linguistics #speaking #university #study #selfhelp #learning 

Texas

English

Foundation

KALLIS' iBT TOEFL Pattern Writing Series simplifies each TOEFL speaking task into a series of simple steps, which ensures that students do not become overwhelmed as they develop their speaking skills. Moreover, our commitment to minimizing instruction and maximizing student practice assures that students have many opportunities to strengthen their speaking skills.
 * The Hacking Strategy shows students how to approach each question type.

 * KALLIS' iBT TOEFL Pattern Writing Series offers a variety of practice questions and quizzes, including:
 * 3 Actual Practices that combine skills developed in earlier chapters.
 * 1 Actual Test that consists of a full-length iBT TOEFL speaking test and a scoring chart.

Visit our website kallisedu.com to access all of the associated recorded content.

KALLIS' IBT TOEFL Pattern Speaking 1

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Part history, part travelog. One appendix includes tables of multiple major alphabets. 

Arizona

How 26 Letters Shaped the Western World

Praise for Alpha Beta
"This book comes at the perfect moment as we rediscover the importance in early reading of cracking the alphabetic code. The story of how that code came into being is a fascinating one, and Man is the ideal writer to tell it." Times Educational Supplement

"A richly absorbing exploration, from B.C. to PCs, of the evolution of the most fundamental characters of our cultural history, the alphabet we so much take for granted. John Man writes with a compellingly restless curiosity and immediacy. The ever surprising, exotically detailed narrative in his informative book makes it as undryly enjoyable as a successful archaelogical dig of one of Alan Moorehead s colorful histories of African exploration." David Grambs, author of The Describer s Dictionary and The Endangered English Dictionary

"Text that is crisp, taut, and as clear as a bell.... A fascinating story with many a beguiling subplot along the way." New Scientist

"Letter perfect the best histories and mysteries of our ABC s!" Jeff McQuain, author of Never Enough Words and Power Language

Alpha Beta

344b7363-4019-43e8-ad69-8504e3188673-1

#vocabuary #dictionary
#lexicography #linguistics #intellectual #

The Three Books

A collection of unusual and amusing words.

The Superior Person's Book of Words

5d3bc874-0729-4999-afac-e77506b64768-1

#hardcover #language #linguistics Name & number blacked out on first page. 

Massachusetts

The Amazing Science of Bad Language

An irreverent and impeccably researched defense of our dirtiest words.

Swearing Is Good for You

ab9727ab-c5b9-4389-8879-414aa109af33-1

#paperback #nonfiction #linguistics #language #history #science

Social Studies

A Natural History of Language

"An essay in origins ... as theoretical as Hawking and Gorst in trying to see into the deep past. McWhorter is a clear and witty writer."-- Harper's

In the first book written for the layperson about the natural history of language, linguistic professor John McWhorter ranges across linguistic theory, geography, history, and pop culture to tell the fascinating story of how thousands of very different languages have evolved from a single, original source in a natural process similar to biological evolution.

There are approximately six thousand languages on Earth today, each a descendant of the tongue first spoken by Homo sapiens some 150,000 years ago. While laying out how languages mix and mutate over time, linguistics professor John McWhorter reminds us of the variety within the species that speaks them, and argues that, contrary to popular perception, language is not immutable and hidebound, but a living, dynamic entity that adapts itself to an ever-changing human environment. Full of humor and imaginative insight, The Power of Babel draws its illustrative examples from languages around the world, including pidgins, Creoles, and nonstandard dialects.

The Power of Babel

b200794a-d3c3-485a-8033-f0ab6a74981d-1

#hardcover #nonfiction #language #linguistics Book will be removed from shop mid-June. Prices are negotiable.

District of Columbia

Reveals language's myriad intricacies and quirks. This book focuses on the development of unique linguistic styles, the origins of obscure accents, and the search for the first written word. It discusses the plight of endangered languages, as well as successful cases of linguistic revitalization.

A Little Book of Language

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Bent cover but pages are beautiful. #paperback #linguistics

Louisiana

An introduction to the study of speech

Language

Originally published: London: William Heinemann, 2020.

The Liar's Dictionary

b1d15d43-f0bd-44e0-a07f-13e2819b57e0-1

#suspenseful #provocative #diaturbing #chilling #linguistics

One of Entertainment Weekly's and SheReads' books to read after The Handmaid's Tale One of Good Morning America's "Best Books to Bring to the Beach This Summer" Set in a United States in which half the population has been silenced, Vox is the harrowing, unforgettable story of what one woman will do to protect herself and her daughter. On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed more than one hundred words per day, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial. This can't happen here. Not in America. Not to her. This is just the beginning... Soon women are not permitted to hold jobs. Girls are not taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke sixteen thousand words each day, but now women have only one hundred to make themselves heard. ...not the end. For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.

Editors of Chartwell Books

Why Do We Say It? : The Stories Behind the Words, Expressions, and Cliches We Use

Readers Digest

Illustrated Reverse Dictionary

Rosalind Fergusson; Market House Books Ltd.

The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary (Penguin Books, 1985)

Suzette Haden Elgin; Leni Zumas (Foreword by)

Native Tongue

Erica Ferencik

Girl in Ice

John McWhorter

Losing the Race

Erica Ferencik

Girl in Ice

Mary Doria Russell

The Sparrow

Karl Menninger

Number Words and Number Symbols

Martin Joos

The Five Clocks

Betty Kirkpatrick

Cliches

Lynne Truss

Eats, Shoots and Leaves : The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Thomas A. Sebeok

A Sign is Just a Sign

Mario Pei

Talking Your Way Around the World

Kallis

KALLIS' IBT TOEFL Pattern Speaking 1

John Man

Alpha Beta

Peter Bowler

The Superior Person's Book of Words

Emma Byrne

Swearing Is Good for You

John McWhorter

The Power of Babel

David Crystal

A Little Book of Language

Edward Sapir

Language

Eley Williams

The Liar's Dictionary

Christina Dalcher

Vox

The Department of Linguistics, Ohio State University

Language Files 11th ed