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The Miracle of Language
Richard Lederer
出版
Simon and Schuster
, 2010-05-11
主題
Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / Historical & Comparative
Language Arts & Disciplines / Speech & Pronunciation
Language Arts & Disciplines / General
Language Arts & Disciplines / Reference
ISBN
1439139407
9781439139400
URL
http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=aakq9i5kUWMC&hl=&source=gbs_api
EBook
SAMPLE
註釋
Master verbalist Richard Lederer, America's "Wizard of Idiom"
(Denver Post),
presents a love letter to the most glorious of human achievements...
Welcome to Richard Lederer's beguiling celebration of language -- of our ability to utter, write, and receive words. No purists need stop here. Mr. Lederer is no linguistic sheriff organizing posses to hunt down and string up language offenders. Instead, join him "In Praise of English," and discover why the tongue described in Shakespeare's day as "of small reatch" has become the most widely spoken language in history:
English never rejects a word because of race, creed, or national origin. Did you know that
jukebox
comes from Gullah and
canoe
from Haitian Creole?
Many of our greatest writers have invented words and bequeathed new expressions to our eveyday conversations. Can you imagine making up almost ten percent of our written vocabulary? Scholars now know that William Shakespeare did just that!
He also points out the pitfalls and pratfalls of English. If a man mans a station, what does a woman do? In the "The Department of Redundancy Department," "Is English Prejudiced?" and other essays, Richard Lederer urges us not to abandon that which makes us human: the capacity to distinguish, discriminate, compare, and evaluate.