500 Years of New Words

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Dundurn, 2004 - 312 páginas

500 Years of New Words takes you on an exciting journey through the English language from the days before Shakespeare to the first decade of the 21st century. All the main entries are arranged not alphabetically by in chronological order based on the earliest known year that each word was printed or written down.

Beginning with "America" in 1507 and spanning the centuries to "Marsiphobiphiliac" in 2004 (a person who would love to go to Mars but is afraid of being marooned there), this book can be opened at any page and the reader will discover a dazzling array of linguistic delights. In other words, this book is unputdownable (the main entry for 1947). If Shakespeare were alive today, he would buy this book.

Dentro del libro

Contenido

Foreword
9
The 1600s
73
The 1700s
135
The 1800s
199
The 1900s and Beyond
255
Derechos de autor

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Términos y frases comunes

Pasajes populares

Página 49 - ... a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.
Página 61 - Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light. What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight. O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Página 152 - Travels into several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships.
Página 113 - ... put on black or made a formal dress of mourning for their nearest friends; but the voice of mourning was truly heard in the streets. The shrieks of women and children at the windows and doors of their houses, where their...
Página 136 - OATS [a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people], — Croker.
Página 14 - Strange, that the New World should have no better luck, — that broad America must wear the name of a thief. Amerigo Vespucci, the pickle-dealer at Seville, who went out, in 1499, a subaltern with Hojeda, and whose highest naval rank was boatswain's mate in an expedition that never sailed, managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus, and baptize half the earth with his own dishonest name.
Página 49 - In these daies, the taking-in of the smoke of the Indian herbe called 'Tabaco,' by an instrument formed like a little ladell, whereby it passeth from the mouth into the hed and stomach, is gretlie taken up and used in England, against Rewmes and some other diseases ingendred in the longes and inward partes, and not without effect.
Página 14 - World should have no better luck, — that broad America must wear the name of a thief. Amerigo Vespucci, the pickle-dealer at Seville, who * William Spence. went out, in 1499, a subaltern with Hojeda, and whose highest naval rank was boatswain's mate in an expedition that never sailed, managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus, and baptize half the earth with his own dishonest name.
Página 74 - O harsh lips, I now hear all around me such words as common, vices, envy, malice; even virtue, study, justice, pity, mercy, compassion, profit, commodity, colour, %racc, favour, acceptance. But whither, I pray, in all the world have you banished those words which our forefathers used for these new-fangled ones ? Are our words to be exiled like our citizens?
Página 199 - We were introduced to the little engine which was to drag us along the rails. She (for they make these curious little firehorses all mares) consisted of a boiler, a stove, a small platform, a bench, and behind the bench a barrel containing enough water to prevent her being thirsty for fifteen miles, — the whole machine not bigger than a common fire-engine.

Acerca del autor (2004)

Bill Sherk has enjoyed a life-long fascination with words. While teaching history to high school students in Toronto, he read Webster's Dictionary from cover to cover, a feat that took three years, three months, and sixteen days. He then wrote two dictionaries of his own: Brave New Words (1979) and More Brave New Words (1981). His latest book, 500 Years of New Words is an update of his earlier book (1983) which now brings the English language into the 21st century.

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