This collection focuses on republishing rare and valuable classic works from the early 1900s and earlier, ensuring they remain accessible to readers. Each edition retains the original text and artwork, presented in high-quality formats. The initiative aims to preserve literary history while offering affordable options for those interested in timeless literature.
This dictionary explores the origins of 20,000 modern English words, highlighting their connections through various derivation routes. It features continuous prose with numbered paragraphs, cross-references, and extensive lists of prefixes, suffixes, and elements, making it both informative and engaging for browsing.
This work looks at the area defined as "cant". It includes the vocabulary of "crooks, criminals, racketeers, beggars, tramps, convicts and the commercial underworld, the drug traffic, the white slave traffic and spivs", gathered from many countries and from obscure sources.
Explains the origins and meanings of popular phrases
A catch phrase is a well-known, frequently-used phrase or saying that has `caught on' or become popular over along period of time. It is often witty or philosophical and this Dictionary gathers together over 7,000 such phrases.
Focusing on the intricate sexual and scatological language in Shakespeare's works, this book serves as a comprehensive glossary. It provides alphabetical entries and cross-references, making it an invaluable resource for modern readers seeking to understand the bawdy elements in Shakespeare's plays and poetry.
This Smaller Slang Dictionary has been written for the general public. Though it includes important survivals from earlier periods, it deals mainly with the slang of the twentieth century, and, in the author's words, 'although not intransigently puritanical, it can go into any home without causing embarrassment, and into any school without corrupting good manners or vitiating good taste among either the teachers or the taught.' Underworld vocabulary, because specialized, is omitted, but naturalized Americanisms, service slang and the catch phrase are all covered.
Which is to be preferred - 'nom de plume', 'pseudonym', or 'pen-name'? What are neologisms, disguised conjunctions, and fused participles? How should one set about writing a précis? More generally, where does usage end and abusage begin? Language is everybody's business, and enters into almost every part of human life. Yet it is all too often misused: directness and clarity disappear in a whirl of clichés, euphemisms, and woolliness of expression. This book wittily attacks linguistic abusage of all kinds, and at the same time offers constructive advice on the proper use of English.
"Polite Conversation in Three Dialogues" by Jonathan Swift explores the nuances of social interaction. Swift's wit and linguistic creativity have significantly shaped the English language, contributing phrases like "raining cats and dogs" and many others.