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The Lexicographer's Dilemma
- The Evolution of 'Proper' English, from Shakespeare to South Park
- Narrated by: Anthony Gettig
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
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The Lexicographer's Dilemma
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Publisher's summary
In its long history, the English language has had many lawmakers - those who have tried to regulate or otherwise organize the way we speak. The Lexicographer's Dilemma poses a pair of questions: What does proper English mean? And who gets to say what's right? Our ideas of correct or proper English have a history, and today's debates over the state of the language - whether about Ebonics in schools, the unique use of language in a South Park episode, or split infinitives in the Times - make sense only in historical context. As historian Jack Lynch has discovered, every rule has a human history, and the characters who populate his narrative are as interesting for their obsessions as for their erudition. Charting the evolution of English with wit and intelligence, he provides a rich historical perspective that makes us appreciate a new the hard-won standards we now enjoy.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very enjoyable and well narrated
- By Larbi on 05-18-08
By: Clive James
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Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue
- The Untold History of English
- By: John McWhorter
- Narrated by: John McWhorter
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,993
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,374
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,350
A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, focusing on our strange and wonderful grammar. Why do we say "I am reading a catalog" instead of "I read a catalog"? Why do we say "do" at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great for casual linguists
- By Bertie on 01-11-10
By: John McWhorter
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The Story of English in 100 Words
- By: David Crystal
- Narrated by: David Crystal
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 268
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 231
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 231
In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences, and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century ("roe", in case you are wondering). Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient words ("loaf") to cutting edge ("twittersphere") and spanning the indispensable words that shape our tongue ("and", "what") to the more fanciful ("fopdoodle"), Crystal takes us along the winding byways of language.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Random but entertaining
- By Sean on 04-01-13
By: David Crystal
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Making History
- The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past
- By: Richard Cohen
- Narrated by: Richard Cohen
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
There are many stories we can spin about previous ages, but which accounts get told? And by whom? Is there even such a thing as “objective” history? In this “witty, wise, and elegant” (The Spectator), book, Richard Cohen reveals how professional historians and other equally significant witnesses, such as the writers of the Bible, novelists, and political propagandists, influence what becomes the accepted record. Cohen argues, for example, that some historians are practitioners of “Bad History” and twist reality to glorify themselves or their country.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Missing 20 pages from book
- By Rick, Austin on 04-23-22
By: Richard Cohen
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The Pun Also Rises
- How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics
- By: John Pollack
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
The Pun Also Rises is an authoritative yet playful exploration of a practice that is common, in one form or another, to virtually every language on earth. At once entertaining and educational, this engaging book answers fundamental questions: Just what is a pun, and why do people make them? How did punning impact the development of human language, and how did that drive creativity and progress? And why, after centuries of decline, does the pun still matter?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Punderful Little Book
- By B. Lane on 01-10-13
By: John Pollack
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Notes on a Century
- Reflections of a Middle East Historian
- By: Bernard Lewis, Buntzie Ellis Churchill
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
Few historians end up as historical actors in their own right, but Bernard Lewis has both witnessed and participated in some of the key events of the last century. When we think of the Middle East, we see it in terms that he defined and articulated.In this exceptional memoir he shares stories of his wartime service in London and Cairo, decrypting intercepts for MI6, with sometimes unexpected consequences. After the war, he was the first Western scholar ever invited into the Ottoman archives in Istanbul.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Can't Get Enough of the Book
- By Sanford H. on 12-11-13
By: Bernard Lewis, and others
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The Riddle of the Labyrinth
- The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code
- By: Margalit Fox
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 145
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 131
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Story4 out of 5 stars 130
In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece's Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe's earliest written records.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Discovery and Translation of Linear B Script
- By Sires on 01-11-14
By: Margalit Fox
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How to Speak and Write Correctly
- By: Joseph Devlin
- Narrated by: Shawn Grisden
- Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
This book has no pretension about it whatever -- it is neither a Manual of Rhetoric, expatiating on the dogmas of style, nor a Grammar full of arbitrary rules and exceptions. It is merely an effort to help ordinary, everyday people to express themselves in ordinary, everyday language, in a proper manner.
By: Joseph Devlin
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Hitler Homer Bible Christ
- The Historical Papers of Richard Carrier 1995-2013
- By: Richard Carrier
- Narrated by: Richard Carrier
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 142
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 130
Richard Carrier, Ph.D., philosopher, historian, blogger, has published a number of papers in the field of ancient history and biblical studies. He has also written several books and chapters on diverse subjects, and has been blogging and speaking since 2006. He is known the world over for all the above. But here, together for the first time, are all of Dr. Carrier's peer reviewed academic journal articles in history through the year 2013, collected with his best magazine articles, research papers, and blog posts on the same subjects.
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3 out of 5 stars
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"Call Me Underwhelmed"
- By Ray M on 09-12-16
By: Richard Carrier
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How to Write Short
- Word Craft for Fast Times
- By: Roy Peter Clark
- Narrated by: Roy Peter Clark
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4 out of 5 stars 68
In How to Write Short , Roy Peter Clark turns his attention to the art of painting a thousand pictures with just a few words. Short forms of writing have always existed - from ship logs and telegrams to prayers and haikus. But in this ever-changing Internet age, short-form writing has become an essential skill. Clark covers how to write effective and powerful titles, headlines, essays, sales pitches, Tweets, letters, and even self-descriptions for online dating services.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Ironically long
- By Amazon Customer on 03-14-16
By: Roy Peter Clark
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The Road to Monticello
- The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson
- By: Kevin J. Hayes
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 25 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Thomas Jefferson was an avid book-collector, a voracious reader, and a gifted writer - a man who prided himself on his knowledge of classical and modern languages and whose marginal annotations include quotations from Euripides, Herodotus, and Milton. And yet there has never been a literary life of our most literary president.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Very Boring Book
- By Greg on 05-13-14
By: Kevin J. Hayes
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Semicolon
- The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark
- By: Cecelia Watson
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 3 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
A pause-resisting, existential romp through the life and times of the world’s most polarizing punctuation mark. Through her rollicking biography of the semicolon, Watson writes a guide to grammar that explains why we don’t need guides at all and refocuses our attention on the deepest, most primary value of language: true communication.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Silly me; I thought it was about semicolons
- By Jeffrey D on 08-15-19
By: Cecelia Watson
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The Art of Nonfiction
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 145
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4 out of 5 stars 85
Rand takes listeners step by step through the writing process, providing insightful observations and invaluable techniques along the way. She discusses the psychological aspects of writing and the roles played by the conscious and subconscious mind. She talks about articles and books, explaining how to select a subject and theme, how to identify your audience, and how to write the first draft.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great Content, but the narrator is annoying
- By Ms on 01-26-09
By: Ayn Rand
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The Infidel and the Professor
- David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought
- By: Dennis C. Rasmussen
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 180
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 144
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 145
Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship of two towering Enlightenment thinkers that had great consequences for modern thought. David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime, he was attacked as "the Great Infidel" for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a thoroughly enjoyable account of friendship
- By henryj on 02-21-20
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To Show and to Tell
- The Craft of Literary Nonfiction
- By: Phillip Lopate
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 75
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4 out of 5 stars 62
Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, is universally acclaimed as “one of our best personal essayists” ( Dallas Morning News). Here, combining more than 40 years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone, and immense gift for storytelling.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not a guide on writing personal essays
- By A. Yoshida on 08-07-13
By: Phillip Lopate
What listeners say about The Lexicographer's Dilemma
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- uvejota
- 09-15-17
Interesting, entertaining and enlightening
If you could sum up The Lexicographer's Dilemma in three words, what would they be?
An interesting, enlightening and certainly entertaining walk through evolution of English language and the multiples dilemmas it has faced. This book explanains how English has been working and developing through years.
Complete review on Medium. https://medium.com/@uvejota/the-lexicographers-dilemma-the-evolution-of-proper-english-from-shakespeare-to-south-park-a6e6fa02a797
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