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Description edit
In what other language, asks Lederer, do people drive on a parkway and park in a driveway, and your nose can run and your feet can smell? In CRAZY ENGLISH, Lederer frolics through the logic-boggling byways of our language, discovering the names for phobias you didn't know you could have, the... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
Quotes edit
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“If pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress?”
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“Appropriately the word oxymoron is itself oxymoronic because it is formed from two Greek roots of opposite meanings-oxys, "sharp,keen," and moros, "foolish," the same root that gives us the word moron.”
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“In the crazy English language, the blackbird hen is brown, blackboards can be blue or green, and blackberries are green and then red before they are ripe.”
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“To add to the insanity, ther is no butter in buttermilk, no egg in eggplant, no grape in grapefruit, neither worms nor wood in wormwood, neither pine nor apple in pineapple, neither peas nor nuts in peanuts, and no ham in hamburger.”
First Sentence edit
English is the most widely spoken language in the history of our planet, used in some way by at least one out of every seven human beings around the globe.
Table of Contents edit
I. The Strange Case of the English Language
1. English Is a Crazy Language
2. Confusable English
3. Good Grief!
4. Sesquipedalian English
II. The Name Is the Game
5. What's Your Phobia?
6. The Secrets of "Nym"
7. Brand-New Eponyms
8. Janus-Faced English
9. A Hymn to Heteronyms
III. Figuratively Speaking
10. A Visit to the Language Zoo
11. You Said a Mouthful
12. Violent English
IV. Unmechanical English
13. Foxen in the Henhice
14. Tense Time with Verbs
15. Spellbound
V. The Sound of English
16. Sound and Sense
17. Beautiful English
18. Alliteration Strikes the Nation
19. Rhyme Time
VI. English at Play
20. The Play of Words
21. Anagrammatical English
22. Doctor Rotcod's Ailihphilia
VII. The Last Word About Words
23. The Antics of Semantics
Authors & Contributors edit
- Richard Lederer (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: POCKET BOOKS
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1989
ISBN: 0671689061
Page Count: 189
Publisher: POCKET BOOKS
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1989
ISBN: 0671689061
Page Count: 189
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 428.00207
Subjects edit
- Books › Reference › Words & Language › Usage
- Books › Nonfiction › Education › Reference
- Books › Reference › Words & Language › Study & Teaching
- Books › Reference › Foreign Languages
- Books › Entertainment › Humor › Puns & Wordplay
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