Word Origins And How We Know Them
Download Word Origins And How We Know Them PDF/ePub or read online books in Mobi eBooks. Click Download or Read Online button to get Word Origins And How We Know Them book now. This website allows unlimited access to, at the time of writing, more than 1.5 million titles, including hundreds of thousands of titles in various foreign languages.
Word Origins...And How We Know Them
A guide to the science and process of etymology for the layperson explains how the origins and history of hundreds of words are determined, discussing such topics as folk etymology, changes of meaning in language history, borrowed words, and the methods of etymology.
Origins of the Specious
Do you cringe when a talking head pronounces “niche” as NITCH? Do you get bent out of shape when your teenager begins a sentence with “and”? Do you think British spellings are more “civilised” than the American versions? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re myth-informed. In Origins of the Specious, word mavens Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman reveal why some of grammar’s best-known “rules” aren’t—and never were—rules at all. This playfully witty, rigorously researched book sets the record straight about bogus word origins, politically correct fictions, phony français, fake acronyms, and more. Here are some shockers: “They” was once commonly used for both singular and plural, much the way “you” is today. And an eighteenth-century female grammarian, of all people, is largely responsible for the all-purpose “he.” From the Queen’s English to street slang, this eye-opening romp will be the toast of grammarphiles and the salvation of grammarphobes. Take our word for it.
Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins
Author: Julia Cresswell
language: en
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release Date: 2010-09-09
Contains alphabetically arranged entries that explore the origin, evolution, and social history of over three thousand English language words.