With Baited Breath

Tori Cannon's life is in chaos. She's lost her job, her grandmother just died, and her lease has run out. Her only hope is to live with her grandfather on Lotus Bay near Lake Ontario and revive his failing bait and tackle business. Convincing him not to sell it is one of her problems. Topping that, her troubles increase when she finds a dead body on the property—a man with spikes filling his mouth. The victim's enemies are a rich woman who wants to level his eyesore of a home and his daughter who is resentful that her father never had time for her. With no faith from her grandfather that Tori can save the failing business and discover a murderer, all her eggs are in one basket as both her life and her future hinge on her sorting through petty jealousies and deadly consequences to find the truth. Can Tori save her family bait shop—after such a deadly catch?

Tori Cannon and her grandfather, Herb return from her grandmother's funeral, and it's with sadness that she learns the bait ship and small motel they ran has fallen on hard times. Jammed into one of the motel's units is the body of one of Herb's customers, his mouth filled with spikes. The victim has not enemies, except for maybe the rich woman who wanted to level his eyesore of a home. But he also had a daughter who's resentful her father wasn't a major force in her life, and some friends who were anything but friends. Tori's friend, Kathy, arrives to help spruce up the property, and the two of them find themselves mixed up in the petty jealousies and deadly consequences that murder entails. Can they save the bait ship and find a murderer or will they, too, sleep with the fishes?

An entertaining and informative guide to the most common 150 words even smart people use incorrectly, along with pithy forays into their fascinating etymologies and tangled histories of use and misuse. Even the most erudite among us use words like apocryphal, facetious, ironic, meteorite, moot, redundant, and unique incorrectly every day. Don’t be one of them. Using examples of misuse from leading newspapers, prominent public figures and famous writers, among others, language gurus Ross Petras and Kathryn Petras explain how to avoid these perilous pitfalls in the English language. Each entry also includes short histories of how and why these mistake have happened, some of the (often surprisingly nasty) debates about which uses are (and are not) mistakes, and finally, how to use these words correctly … or why to not use them at all. By the end of this book, every literati will be able to confidently, casually, and correctly toss in an “a priori” or a “limns” without hesitation.

Our knowledge of breathing has shaped our social history and philosophical beliefs since prehistory. Breathing occupied a spiritual status for the ancients, while today it is central to the practice of many forms of meditation, like Yoga. Over time physicians, scientists, and engineers have pieced together the intricate biological mechanisms of breathing to devise ever more sophisticated devices to support and maintain breathing indefinitely, from iron lungs to the modern ventilator. Breathing supplementary oxygen has allowed us to conquer Everest, travel to the Moon, and dive to ever greater ocean depths. We all expect to breathe fresh and clean air, but with an increase in air pollution that expectation is no longer being met. Today, respiratory viruses like COVID-19 are causing disasters both human and economical on a global scale. This is the story of breathing—a tale relevant to everyone.

Since first appearing in 1998, Garner's Modern American Usage has established itself as the preeminent guide to the effective use of the English language. Brimming with witty, erudite essays on troublesome words and phrases, GMAU authoritatively shows how to avoid the countless pitfalls that await unwary writers and speakers whether the issues relate to grammar, punctuation, word choice, or pronunciation. An exciting new feature of this third edition is Garner's Language-Change Index, which registers where each disputed usage in modern English falls on a five-stage continuum from nonacceptability (to the language community as a whole) to acceptability, giving the book a consistent standard throughout. GMAU is the first usage guide ever to incorporate such a language-change index. The judgments are based both on Garner's own original research in linguistic corpora and on his analysis of hundreds of earlier studies. Another first in this edition is the panel of critical readers: 120-plus commentators who have helped Garner reassess and update the text, so that every page has been improved. Bryan A. Garner is a writer, grammarian, lexicographer, teacher, and lawyer. He has written professionally about English usage for more than 28 years, and his work has achieved widespread renown. David Foster Wallace proclaimed that Bryan Garner is a genius and William Safire called the book excellent. In fact, due to the strength of his work on GMAU, Garner was the grammarian asked to write the grammar-and-usage chapter for the venerable Chicago Manual of Style. His advice on language matters is second to none.

We all use these expressions to a greater or lesser extent because they are helpful. They constitute a kind of verbal shorthand by which we can express our intentions and our emotions. We are “on cloud nine” or “in the pink.” We are “under the weather” or “at sixes and sevens.” Sometimes “things pan out,” or they just aren’t “up to snuff.”We know what we mean when we say these things, but we don’t always know what we’re talking about. How did these expressions come into the language? What are we really saying when we’re “happy as a clam” or “three sheets to the wind”?This book intends to give you some of the answers—while at the same time letting you have some fun. Three possible explanations as to origin are given for each commonly used expression. Only one is correct, and a number on the page that follows will tell you which one it is. The other two are simply fabrications, which I made up to confuse you.See if you can figure out which is which. See if you can “separate the wheat from the chaff.”CFA

A comprehensive guide to the English language provides detailed and expert information on grammar, style, spelling, vocabulary, and punctuation with clear explanations and example sentences.

That or Which, and Why is an insightful and witty guide to writing. Based on Evan Jenkins's long-running column 'Language Corner' in Columbia Journalism Review, the book is compiled of brief, alphabetically arranged entries on approximately 200 major writing stumbling blocks, from the wonderful world of 'that' and 'which' to trickier terrain like the correct usage of common idiomatic expressions. Working from his experiences as a newsroom editor and teacher, Jenkins' humorous tone puts the reader at ease, unlike many of the writing and usage guides out there that are off-putting in their rigidity and dogmatism. He takes the 'we're-all-in-this-together' approach to teaching better writing - maintaining a light tone throughout the book and emphasizing flexibility and easy-to-use guidelines rather than delivering orders from Grammar-on-high.