Product Description

A dictionary for those who perceive a difference, a handbook for Superior Persons who love words.

Are you an Anglophile? (Stout fellow!) Just stand at this springboard and leave the fields of popinjay jabber and tongue-stumped battology behind forever! Step up for big dividends in the giddy heights of superior speech. Are you a rasorial searcher after words? Are nouns your bread? Adjectives your butter? Verbs your little salad? Adverbs your house dressing? Well, then, this is the book to shiver you futtocks! Put an end to fopdoodly speech; amaze your friends, baffle your enemies, write interoffice memos to end all discussion! Peter Bowler will teach you the practical riches of saying it well with good words, neglected words, precise words for vocabular exultation. A Superior Person is not defined by income, class, or sex. A Superior Person uses Superior Speech. And, if Aristotle's definition of art as something both entertaining and edifying is still toasted with glee, then there's art a-chock-a-block in Mr. Bowler's dictionary - a funny, useful, and elevating little book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #57835 in Books
• Published on: 1985-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 112 pages

Review
Nothing short of a brief dictionary for those who aspire to linguistic snobbery. --St. Petersburg Times

From the Publisher
Are you an Anglophile? (Stout fellow!) Just stand at this springboard and leave the fields of popinjay jabber and tongue-stumped battology behind forever! Stop up for big dividends in the giddy heights of superior speech. Peter Bowler will teach you the practical riches of saying it well with good words, neglected words, and precise words for vocabular exultation!

About the Author
Peter Bowler, our ageless author, has to his name several other published books - mostly irreverant paperbacks which treat serious subjects, such as death and religion, with regrettable flippancy. He has also written a book about child development, but could find nothing funny in that. His most recent book is the 1998 novel Human Remains. Today these books are mostly, as the French say, introuvable, lending them an intrinsic attraction for those who aspire to the unattainable.

Customer Reviews

You, too can learn charientisms in your spare time!
I could feast all day on a book of fine words. To me, words have colors, flavors and textures. They roll around the tongue like savory morsels, each distinct. There is an art to combining them, much as there is an art to marrying flavors in haute cuisine. Sometimes a chef is adamant about a certain spice or food element for his special dish, as only that one will do to complete a complex palate. In the same way, I will search carefully for just the right word to complete my thoughts. It is a labor of love.

The Superior Person's Book of Words is just the thing if your dictionary proves uninspiring. Not only will you find just what you are looking for, but the entertaining and wry wit employed in the definitions will sally the keen reader upon new directions in sassy verbal repartee. Many of the listings are invaluable as veiled insults, and the author frequently highlights these with sample usage sentences. My only comment on that is, living with Peter Bowler must be like living with Oscar Wilde.

There are *some* pedestrian listings thrown in, presumably as padding. Or maybe they are intended as mollifiers for the "inferior" readers? In any case, words such as "heterosexual", "pastime" and "impalement" hardly count as tidbits for the esoteric lexicographer in my opinion. Thankfully, they are relatively few.

The best part of this book though is the way the author words the definitions. Some examples:
Papuliferous. Pimply. Typical condition of a groak.
Groak. One who stands around while others eat, in the hope that he will be invited to join in. A good name for a female relative's boyfriend.
Nugatory. Of no value, trifling, insubstantial, pointless. Unfavorable criticism of the present book could properly be so characterized.

Now how could you not adore a "dictionary" like this?
-Andrea, aka Merribelle

If'n ya'll likes yer book lernin', then this here's a book fer you
Hoooooo weee, this here book sure is full of words--most of 'em nobody's never heard tell of. If you want to be highfalutin' and/or want to put on some airs, run right out and buy this darn thing.

You'll notice most of the other reviewers are showing how dang funny they are by usin' as many words from this book as they can fit in. See how gall-darned smart they look? You can have people you don't know thinkin' yer smart too. If'n you buy this here book, that is.

Just imagine that you are ringing up customers at Wal Mart and you could say something like "wow, four gallons of milk...you must have quite the galactophage on your hands" the customer will just stare at you, but you can bet it'll crack 'em up in the break room! Or when someone comes through your line buying both cookies and diet Coke you might say "I may need to get a price check on antipodes" What a knee-slapper!

If you can read, this book is fairly easy to get through--and if you can remember what you read you will have the ability to make anyone at any tractor pull, demolition derby or NASCAR race scratch their giant hat-holder and look like a real dolt in comparison. . After all, fun at other people's expense is the best kind of fun you can have.

I am a lexical omnivore
Yes, this book will interest all lexical omnivores, those collectors and aficionados of uncommon words, words which can be used to signify social superiority. It is in this book that I encountered and peremptorily metabolised some of my most choice lexical items -canard", "egregious", "screed", "sciolist" "asinine" etc which I now employ with casual ubiquity. This book will augment your vocabulary and distend your self-image.