- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: Random House Reference; 1 edition (July 11 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0375721134
- ISBN-13: 978-0375721137
- Product Dimensions: 13.9 x 2.2 x 20.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 431 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #824,428 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Review
The Life of Language, subtitled “the fascinating ways words are born, live and die,” by Sol Steinmetz and Barbara Ann Kipfer (Random House trade paperback, $17). This scholarly but easy-to-breeze-through introduction to the world of words, written by a pair of crack lexicographers (Sol is a longtime mentor of On Language), ranks as the linguistic bargain of the year.
From baby talk to back-formation, from minting new words to functional shift, the subjects are treated with amusing erudition. The chapter on reduplication – “flip-flopping higgledy-piggledy through the riffraff” – differentiates rhyming compounds like bigwig, hotshot, ragtag, sci-fi from repetitions called tautonyms, such as bye-bye, so-so, rah-rah, as well as from ricochet words in which the repeated element is modified: chit-chat, roly-poly, shilly-shally.
They reveal the source of the “schm-/shm- reduplication,” from the Yiddish koyfn, shmoyfn, “To buy, not to buy, who cares?” This construction led to the adoption in English of fancy-schmancy to mean “pretentious” and to the jocular derogation of a host of words and names (“Oedipus, schmoedipus – as long as he loves his mother”). Boinng!
--William Safire, The New York Times, December 3, 2006
From baby talk to back-formation, from minting new words to functional shift, the subjects are treated with amusing erudition. The chapter on reduplication – “flip-flopping higgledy-piggledy through the riffraff” – differentiates rhyming compounds like bigwig, hotshot, ragtag, sci-fi from repetitions called tautonyms, such as bye-bye, so-so, rah-rah, as well as from ricochet words in which the repeated element is modified: chit-chat, roly-poly, shilly-shally.
They reveal the source of the “schm-/shm- reduplication,” from the Yiddish koyfn, shmoyfn, “To buy, not to buy, who cares?” This construction led to the adoption in English of fancy-schmancy to mean “pretentious” and to the jocular derogation of a host of words and names (“Oedipus, schmoedipus – as long as he loves his mother”). Boinng!
--William Safire, The New York Times, December 3, 2006
Product Description
If time travelers from the nineteenth century dropped in on us, our strange vocabulary would shock them just as much as our TVs, cars, and computers. Society changes, and so does its word stock. The Life of Language reveals how pop culture, business, technology, and other forces of globalization expand and enrich the English language, forming thousands of new words every year. In this fascinating and jargon-free guide, lexicographers Kipfer and Steinmetz reconstruct the births of thousands of words, including infantries, poz, mobs, Soho, dinks, choo choos, frankenfoods, LOL, narcs and perps.
· A word lover’s guide to etymology, written in a fun, informal, and accessible style
· An excellent resource for vocabulary building; a word's root helps readers understand its meaning
· Beautifully packaged paperback with French flaps
· A word lover’s guide to etymology, written in a fun, informal, and accessible style
· An excellent resource for vocabulary building; a word's root helps readers understand its meaning
· Beautifully packaged paperback with French flaps
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding Book, May 28 2007
By Ralph Keyes - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Life of Language: The Fascinating Ways Words are Born, Live & Die (Paperback)
The Life of Language is an outstanding book. Its authors have done a masteful job of exploring the origins of words we use every day. In a lively, accessible writing style they consider not just the historical roots of our language but more modern phenomena such as what they call "acronymania," the increasing prevlalence of acronyms in contemporary discourse, and "cyberspeak," the many ways we combine "cyber" with other wrods to create new terminology ("cybersex," "cyberpunk," "cyberphobia," etc.) Anyone interested in the stories behind our words will be glad they bought this book.
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Nonfiction > Education > Reference > Words & Language > Etymology
- Books > Nonfiction > Education > Reference > Words & Language > Linguistics
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Linguistics > Applied
- Books > Reference > Words & Language > Etymology
- Books > Reference > Words & Language > Linguistics
- Books > Reference > Writing
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
