After a lifetime spent living firmly in English, Lauren Collins finds herself adrift in French-speaking Geneva. Having fallen in love with Olivier, a Frenchman, Lauren wakes up one day to the realisation that she is living in a community where she cannot speak the language, and that she is married to a man whose name she doesn't dare speak in public, for fear of mispronunciation. As she embarks on learning French in her new surroundings, Lauren reflects...

Tom Wolfe, whose legend began in journalism, takes us on an eye-opening journey that is sure to arouse widespread debate. The 'Kingdom of Speech' is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech - not evolution - is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. From Alfred Russel Wallace, the Englishman who beat Darwin to the theory of natural selection but later renounced it, and through the controversial work of modern-day...

A loquacious bear goes in search of new friends to talk to, but has trouble communicating with the birds he finds until they discover a way to overcome their language differences.

This edition contains over 240,000 words and has been updated with hundreds of new words, phrases, and definitions drawn from the ongoing research of the Oxford English Corpus. It also contains hundreds of usage notes in tricky vocabulary and grammar usage.

'Sign Language Companion' aims to help young people become more fluent in British Sign Language by presenting signs that link ideas and concepts, and enabling students to construct their own combinations in everyday conversations.

What are the ten most offensive swear words in the English language - and why do we love to say them so much? Is politeness just acceptable hypocrisy? Why is Cockney rhyming slang important in the evolution of language? The answers to all this and more are unravelled in this book.

The perfect word reference for daily use. With practical usage notes, and a fantastic supplement, this is the ideal thesaurus to take your language use and knowledge further.

In this ingenious and diverse collection of 366 stories, events and facts about language, David Crystal presents a selection of insights from literary and linguistic writers, poets and global institutions, together with the weird and wonderful creations of language enthusiasts to enliven each day of the year. The day-by-day treatment illustrates the extraordinary breadth of the subject, from 'Morse Code Day' to 'Talk Like William Shatner Day', from...

Have you ever wondered why hairdressers always ask you where you're going on holiday or how ticket inspectors discreetly request back-up? What about cabbies' Knowledge, what rhyming slang really means, or how a magician's patter works? We are surrounded by hundreds of tribes, each speaking their own distinct slanguage of colourful words, jokes and phrases, honed through years of conversations on the battlefield, in A&E, backstage and at ten-thousand...

Packed with fascinating facts on the English language, 'Mother Tongue' is an entertaining and didactic investigation of the influence and distribution of the language worldwide and its origins as a second-rate tongue spoken by peasants.