The Wordsworth Book Of Intriguing Words

An invaluable guide to the fascinating origins of everyday words crafted into pithy annecdotes and facts.

This dictionary aims to help users to find the most appropriate word to use on a wide range of occasions. It is designed in particular for students, those writing reports, letters and speeches, and crossword solvers, but is also useful as a general word reference. Special features include: an alphabetical A-Z listing; numbered senses for words with more than one meaning; British and American variants; and specially marked colloquial uses.

Intended to bridge the gap between two languages of the Indo-European family, this is the first comprehensive bifocal approach to lexicological aspects. Through its theoretical distinctions and applications, the book recommends itself to language professionals and to any reader interested in learning more about words. It starts with a brief theoretical account of overlapping terms, which are given crystal-clear disambiguations. The book then focuses on structural representations of word formations and word relationships, outlining their hierarchicalness and branching directions and revealing various levels of materialization entailed by lexical productivity and frequency of occurrence. Each of these hierarchies defines its related techniques and explains lexical creations, adaptations or adoptions and interrelationships. The approach adopted here proves English to be consistent with formative and sense-related hierarchies, and shows it to have reached a climax in language evolution with its status of a global language, making it the standard in comparative linguistics.

If you thought a book about thesis writing would make for wearisome reading, think again! In seven entertaining and enlightening chapters, Mikael Sundström sheds light on the trials and tribulations of academic writing, offering guidance on how to become a doyen of academic disaster – and, more importantly, how to avoid that fate.