The Etymologicon springs from Mark Forsyth's Inky Fool blog on the strange connections between words. It's an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language, taking in monks and monkeys, film buffs and buffaloes, and explaining precisely what the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening.

The Horologicon (or book of hours) gives you the most extraordinary words in the English language, arranged according to the hour of the day when you really need them. Do you wake up feeling rough? Then you're philogrobolized. Pretending to work? That's fudgelling, which may lead to rizzling if you feel sleepy after lunch, though by dinner time you will have become a sparkling...(展开全部)

In WATCHING THE ENGLISH anthropologist Kate Fox takes a revealing look at the quirks, habits and foibles of the English people. She puts the English national character under her anthropological microscope, and finds a strange and fascinating culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and byzantine codes of behaviour. The rules of weather-speak. The ironic-gnome rule. T...(展开全部)

An indispensable store of information on the English language, written by some of the best-known grammarians in the world.

伦道夫・夸克爵士现任伦敦大学名誉副校长，曾为伦敦奎因大学英语教授和伦敦高校英语用法调查创始人。英语论著颇多。 西德尼・戈林鲍姆现任伦敦奎因大学英语教授和英语用 法调查主任，曾在美国多所大学任英语教授10多年。英语论著颇多。 杰弗里・利奇现为英国兰开斯特大学语言学和现代英语教授，致力于英语用法调查20多年。近来从事现代英语语料微机分析。英语论著颇多。 简・斯瓦特威克现任英国伦敦大学英语教授兼该校英语口语调查主任。英语论著颇多。

「Flaneur」在法文的原意是：生活藝術的漫不經心。它有著閒散、晃蕩、漫遊、慵懶的意涵。因此，在《巴黎晃遊者》中，作者開宗明義就表態：請將所有的旅遊指南全拋諸腦後，就跟隨“我”，愛德蒙．懷特的閒晃漫步，逛逛屬於他私藏的“巴黎後街”，他會一一告訴你巴黎的所有新鮮事和八卦背景。表面上看似漫無目的閒遊，實際上，居住巴黎長達十六年的愛德蒙．懷特，卻是以細膩的眼光踩著巴黎歷史的節拍，透視連巴黎人都不知道的面向。走過書店、商家，再到古蹟、皇宮，他的視線穿透 一棟棟高傲建築的白牆，直探人性的內在戲劇；不論是法國的猶太人歷史、美國黑人的存在、同性戀者、頹廢派藝文人士，甚至是過去與現在的保皇黨，無一不在城市閒遊者筆下被仔細檢視。在愛德蒙．懷特眼中，巴黎之所以具有都市性，也在於它對待作家的態度。 他舉了著名的惹內（Jean Genet）的審判案作為佐證。在1943年，...(展开全部)

This comprehensive anthology attempts to give the common reader possession of six centuries of great British and American poetry. The book features a large introductory essay by Harold Bloom called "The Art of Reading Poetry," which presents his critical reflections of more than half a century devoted to the reading, teaching, and writing about the literary achievement he loves...(展开全部)

The Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries and of other reference titles published by Houghton Mifflin Company are trained lexicographers with a varied array of interests and expertise. Most of the editors hold graduate degrees and have studied at least one foreign language. Several have degrees in linguistics or in the history of the English language. Others have degree...(展开全部)

'More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to...' Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English. From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue; its apparent simplici...(展开全部)