Totally Weird and Wonderful Words

Totally Weird and Wonderful Words PDF

Author: Erin McKean

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2006-10-23

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780199886036

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Do you know what a snollygoster is? Would you eat something called a muktuk? Do you know anyone who engages in onolatry? Impress your friends and pepper your dinner party conversations with such nuggets as gobemouche, mumpsimus, and cachinnate. You can learn about all of these bizarre and beautiful words and many more in Totally Weird and Wonderful Words. Both witty and entertaining, this new paperback brings together two best-selling compendiums to all words unique and strange, Weird and Wonderful Words and More Weird and Wonderful Words. Offering a potpourri of colorful and fascinating words compiled by noted lexicographer Erin McKean, it contains hundreds of definitions, and has been updated to include two new essays, with over 150 words new to this edition. Written in a clear and conversational style, the book contains full-page cartoon illustrations by Roz Chast and Danny Shanahan. Featuring hundreds of words guaranteed to amuse and astonish, this is a book that will appeal to logophiles everywhere. It also features a bibliography of Oxford dictionaries and a guide to creating your own unusual words correctly from Greek and Latin roots. Smart and funny and with just a touch of whimsy, Totally Weird and Wonderful Words is the perfect book for reading in your sitooterie with a bumbo in your hand while mavises sing in your ear.

More Weird and Wonderful Words

More Weird and Wonderful Words PDF

Author: Erin McKean

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 9780195170573

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This title digs deep into forgotten corners of the dictionary, gathering both the most spectacular old and the most impressive new words. The result is more than 400 prime specimens with pronunciations, defined in a conversational style.

Weird Words

Weird Words PDF

Author: Dan Clore

Publisher:

Published: 2009-10-01

Total Pages: 572

ISBN-13: 9780982429648

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Eldritch . . . cacodaemoniacal . . . lucubration . . . Have you ever wondered about the meaning of these and other esoteric words used by Lovecraft and his colleagues? In this immense dictionary, the product of years of scholarship and research, Dan Clore not only defines thousands of words found in the work of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and others, but supplies their derivation and, most impressively, provides parallel usages of the words from centuries of English usage, citing authors ranging from Cotton Mather to Henry Kuttner, from Edmund Spenser to Samuel R. Delany. This is a volume that scholars of English usage, enthusiasts of fantasy and horror literature, and readers who love the beauty of the English language will find richly rewarding . . . either to read from beginning to end or to dip into as the mood strikes them. Dan Clore is a free-lance writer and scholar who has published articles in Lovecraft Studies, Studies in Weird Fiction and numerous other journals and critical anthologies. His fiction is collected in The Unspeakable and Others, first published in 2001.

The Silly Book of Weird and Wacky Words

The Silly Book of Weird and Wacky Words PDF

Author: Andy Seed

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-12-03

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1408866846

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Do you know what 'park your jam on the frog' means? Fancy some ognib? What rhymes with 'circus'? ...plus many more amazing things you never knew about words. Have hours of fun wixing up your murds with this hilarious book, packed full of rhymes, puns, games, jokes, gibberish and more.

The Indispensable Dictionary of Unusual Words

The Indispensable Dictionary of Unusual Words PDF

Author: Josefa Heifetz Byrne

Publisher: Skyhorse

Published: 2012-07-01

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9781616086503

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From aasvogel (the South African vulture) to knurry (full of knots), from melangeur (a machine for making chocolate syrup) to zumbooruk (a small cannon fired from the back of a camel), the words in this book are guaranteed to expand your vocabulary and confound your friends. They may be obscure and even preposterous, but every entry in this eye-opening book has been accepted as a formal or legitimate English word by at least one major dictionary. This dictionary does not claim or attempt to be complete. It is based completely on the editor’s sense of wonder and absurdity. It is educational, yes, but also more fun than any dictionary has a right to be!

Susie Dent's Weird Words

Susie Dent's Weird Words PDF

Author: Susie Dent

Publisher: Scholastic UK

Published: 2013-11-07

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1407138693

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A funny and entertaining way to discover more about the history and meaning of language. SUSIE DENT'S WEIRD WORDS takes children on a rip-roaring tour through some of the most astonishing and sometimes quite revolting origins of English words. As Susie Dent knows, even the most ordinary-sounding word can have the most extraordinary story behind it.

Endangered Words

Endangered Words PDF

Author: Simon Hertnon

Publisher: Skyhorse

Published: 2015-07-07

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9781632204530

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Afterwit, agathism, ambsace, anacampserote, antepenultimate, antimony, and more! “When a word perfectly captures a human truth, humans respond to it in the same way that they respond to a beautiful melody. They smile. They nod their heads. They tell others of their discovery.” So says Simon Hertnon in his introduction to Endangered Words, and after wrapping your tongue around the lexical rarities he offers up to his readers, you’ll have to agree! Hertnon provides one hundred hand-selected rarities, and, in a virtuoso display of concinnity, breathes life into them with his lucid descriptions of their meaning and engaging examples of their usage. Perhaps you are an arriviste enjoying a newfound sense of nikhedonia as you demonstrate your sprezzatura in a given subject. Or maybe you are a desipientplutomaniac destined to a life of poshlost. If this doesn’t describe you, then take your pick of the many wonderful words in this book: Omnistrain Trilemma Aporia Or maybe these are all schlimmbesserungs! Thanks to Endangered Words, you no longer have to be at a loss for words or reach for the clichéd and commonplace. The English language is brimming with ambrosial alternatives, and this compendium offers the cream of the crop. Filled with words to be treasured for their elegant precision, from apophenia to zemblanity, Endangered Words is the perfect handbook for writers, an excellent resource for communicators, and an entertaining read for anyone with an appetite for the very brightest gems of the English language.

Weird and Wonderful Words

Weird and Wonderful Words PDF

Author: Erin McKean

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 0195159055

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Lists the meaning of hundreds of bizarre and unusual words and includes a guide to coining new words.