Product Description

From the bawdy to the sublime, the best writing on language for word lovers, grammar mavens, and armchair linguists. A brilliant, witty, and engaging compendium on the uses and abuses of the English language.With bestselling narratives such as The Professor and the Madman to edicts by popular grammar mavens including Pat O'Conner and Barbara Wallraff, it is clear readers outside of academia are becoming more and more intrigued with language. Founded by legendary lexicographer Lawrence Urdang, for thirty years Verbatim has published amusing and intriguing articles on the English language and the idea of language in general. Here, for the first time, is a collection of Verbatim's greatest hits and wondrous discoveries on concept, usage, jargon, wordplay, linguistics, blunders, malapropisms, and more. With contributors such as Richard Lederer, Jesse Sheidlower, and Joe Queenan, lexicography heavyweights like Frederick Cassidy and William Kunstler, Verbatim is a smart and sassy collection for anyone seeking the highly scholarly or the completely frivolous. From the uses of language in the Bible to the components of a British soccer chant, this astounding collection is sure to offer something for every language enthusiast and word lover to enjoy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #443088 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 372 pages

Amazon.com Review
Verbatim, says the language quarterly's editor, Erin McKean, is "a magazine about all of the fun parts of English and linguistics, written for people who don't necessarily have a Ph.D." This collection of pieces culled from the quarterly is like a candy shop for word lovers. John Tittensor writes about unfortunate last names, Philip Michael Cohen discloses the secret lingo of tiddlywinks players, Pete May explores British football chants, and Jesse Sheidlower reports on the revising of his book The F-Word. Steve Bonner considers "the language as it will never be used," dreaming up evocative word combinations so unlikely that they'd never be uttered: "rotating strawberry madonna," "angry tuba gravy." McKean claims to like "that 'bad English' exists." She also maintains that one should resist correcting the grammar of others. "The easiest way to put your own utterances under intense scrutiny," she warns, "is to toss off a thoughtless public correction of someone else's." --Jane Steinberg

From Publishers Weekly
For lovers of the intricacies of language comes an anthology of the best writing from Verbatim: The Language Quarterly, which has been investigating, debating, and dissecting English for almost 30 years. Erin McKean, the magazine's editor since 1997, has collected lively essays on popular linguistics, dictionaries and the men and women who make them, English etymology and usage, and, of course, obscenity. From a consideration of "student bloopers" to a disquisition on the nature of slang, these thoughtful and often humorous offerings provide insight into the sophisticated systems of human communication in language that's appropriately fresh and, thankfully, jargon-free.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
For over 25 years, Verbatim: A Language Quarterly has been publishing short articles on the use and misuse of language. Here, McKean, editor of Verbatim and a dictionary editor for Oxford University Press, compiles 58 articles from the quarterly on subjects ranging from the meanings of the "F word" to variants in Bible translations. In between, various authors discuss other languages (Welsh dictionaries, Quebe ois Gallicisms, Spanish variations in South America), word games (puns, spoonerisms), jokes (student bloopers, matching wordplay, Irish bulls), jargon (clown talk, S & M terminology, sports slang), and much, much more. McKean has used the work of well-known linguists and journalists (Laurence Urdang, Richard Lederer, and Gerald Eskenazi), but most of the pieces are by unknowns who submitted interesting language observations. All the articles are well written, but some will be more interesting than others. Recommended for public libraries. Kitty Chen Dean, Nassau Coll., Garden City, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Liked it so much I subscribed to the magazine too
I got this book as a Christmas present from my roommate but I didn't start to read it until after Easter. But I'm really glad I did. It was both funny and thought-provoking. There is so much most people don't know about the language we use every day. It was really interesting, and the articles are short and not technical at all so you don't get bogged down.
As I read through it I got really into it and was going to give a copy to my Dad for Father's Day. But then there was a whole article (really funny!) about new uses of the f-word and that's not really for parental units...my roommate said her parents loved it, though.
However, I liked this book so much that I googled the magazine Verbatim and subscribed!

So much fun that you'll want to read it quarterly..
A friend of mine, knowing I'm a student of linguistics, lent me this book, and I'm glad she did; it was one of the most fun, yet relaxing, books I've read in some time. The majority of the essays are funny, and those that aren't are at least interesting (though I confess that there were a few of them I simply didn't care for, it was more than made up for by the others.) The format makes it perfect for short bursts of recreation, especially if you just have a bit of time to kill on the bus or while waiting for something.. it's an excellent book to be read in pieces (and would make a good "bathroom book", come to think of it.) Like other reviewers here, I enjoyed this book so much that I decided to subscribe to the periodical, and I would recommend it to linguists, grammarians and anyone else who enjoys language.

A Wonderful Collection of Witty and Fascinating Essays
This book is a fine compilation of the best essays published in the periodical "Verbatim: The Language Quarterly". The book is devoted to celebrating the bizarre aspects of language (mostly concerning English). Most of the essays are humorous in nature, though many of them are educational and eye opening. Topics such as dialects, dictionaries, grammar, jargon, naming, obscenities, and wordplay are covered in great detail. The section on non-English is especially interesting, which explains Japanese onomatopoeia, Spanish dialects and an odd Welsh dictionary. An essential book for linguists, though most people should find this book enjoyable.