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Lost English
- Words and Phrases that have Vanished from Our Language
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 4 hrs and 13 mins
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Lost English
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Publisher's summary
Would you receive a ‘char and a wad’ with a grateful smile? If asked to take a ‘dekko’, would you be offended?
And if spotted reading the ‘yellow press’, would you be embarrassed?
The meaning of these and many other intriguing phrases are defined, and their loss lamented, in this wonderfully nostalgic look at how language has changed over the past few decades.More from the same
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,087
With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson - the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent - brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience, and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't) to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.
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3 out of 5 stars
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More satire than history
- By Barbara Kindle Customer on 12-18-15
By: Bill Bryson
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A Million Years in a Day
- A Curious History of Everyday Life from the Stone Age to the Phone Age
- By: Greg Jenner
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4 out of 5 stars 80
Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Which came first: the toilet seat or toilet paper? What was the first clock? Every day, from the moment our alarm clock wakes us in the morning until our head hits our pillow at night, we all take part in rituals that are millennia old. Structured around one ordinary day, A Million Years in a Day reveals the astonishing origins and development of the daily practices we take for granted.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Super interesting!
- By Brandon on 07-07-16
By: Greg Jenner
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The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England
- A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,217
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,902
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,892
Imagine you could travel back to the 14th century. What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? And what are you going to eat? Ian Mortimer shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. He sets out to explain what life was like in the most immediate way, through taking you to the Middle Ages. The result is the most astonishing social history book you are ever likely to read: evolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Detailed, Interesting and Entertaining
- By Marc-Andr? on 05-13-10
By: Ian Mortimer
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Flapper
- A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern
- By: Joshua Zeitz
- Narrated by: Daniella Rabbani
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4 out of 5 stars 77
Blithely flinging aside the Victorian manners that kept her disapproving mother corseted, the New Woman of the 1920's puffed cigarettes, snuck gin, hiked her hemlines, danced the Charleston, and necked in roadsters. More important, she earned her own keep, controlled her own destiny, and secured liberties that modern women take for granted. Her newfound freedom heralded a radical change in American culture.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good Book, Poor Performance
- By redsrule1 on 03-16-14
By: Joshua Zeitz
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The Time Traveler's Guide to Regency Britain
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: Ian Mortimer
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 109
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Story5 out of 5 stars 107
In the latest volume of his celebrated series of Time Traveler's Guides, Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history—the Regency, or Georgian England. A time of exuberance, thrills, frills, and unchecked bad behavior, it was perhaps the last age of true freedom before the arrival of the stifling world of Victorian morality. At the same time, it was a period of transition. Conveying the sights, sounds, and smells of the Regency period, this is history at its most exciting—the past not as something to be studied, but as lived experience.
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2 out of 5 stars
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SKIP THIS BOOK
- By Lady Aristotle on 09-05-22
By: Ian Mortimer
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Empire of Things
- How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First
- By: Frank Trentmann
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 33 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4 out of 5 stars 76
What we consume has become the defining feature of our lives: our economies live or die by spending, we are treated more as consumers than workers and even public services are presented to us as products in a supermarket. In this monumental study, acclaimed historian Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary history that has shaped our material world, from late Ming China, Renaissance Italy and the British Empire to the present.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An exhaustive attempt to get the story right
- By John on 03-09-16
By: Frank Trentmann
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London in the Nineteenth Century
- By: Jerry White
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4 out of 5 stars 44
Jerry White's London in the Nineteenth Century is the richest and most absorbing account of the city's greatest century by its leading expert. London in the nineteenth century was the greatest city mankind had ever seen. Its growth was stupendous. Its wealth was dazzling. Its horrors shocked the world. This was the London of Blake, Thackeray and Mayhew, of Nash, Faraday and Disraeli. Most of all it was the London of Dickens. As William Blake put it, London was 'a Human awful wonder of God'.
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2 out of 5 stars
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SO DETAILED..SO VERY VERY DETAILED.
- By Count B on 06-16-19
By: Jerry White
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How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England
- A Guide for Knaves, Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts
- By: Ruth Goodman
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 760
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 654
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Story4 out of 5 stars 651
Every age and social strata has its bad eggs, rule-breakers, and nose-thumbers. As acclaimed popular historian and author of How to Be a Victorian Ruth Goodman reveals in her madcap chronicle, Elizabethan England was particularly rank with troublemakers, from snooty needlers who took aim with a cutting "thee" to lowbrow drunkards with revolting table manners. Goodman draws on advice manuals, court cases, and sermons to offer this colorfully crude portrait of offenses most foul.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I learned a lot about cultural norms..even today's
- By Alanna R on 03-18-19
By: Ruth Goodman
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Corsets and Codpieces
- A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era
- By: Karen Bowman
- Narrated by: Susan Duerden
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
Have you ever wondered why we wear the type of clothes we do? Packed with outlandish outfits, this exciting history of fashion trends reveals the flamboyant fashions adopted (and discarded) by our ancestors. In the days before cosmetic surgery, people used bum rolls and bombastic breeches to augment their figures, painted their faces with poisonous concoctions, and doused themselves with scent to cover body odor.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A poorly researched and weirdly sexist read
- By Interregnum Rex on 08-26-17
By: Karen Bowman
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The Almost Nearly Perfect People
- Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia
- By: Michael Booth
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 656
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 579
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 569
Journalist Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians for more than 10 years, and he has grown increasingly frustrated with the rose-tinted view of this part of the world offered up by the Western media. In this timely audiobook, he leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success, and, most intriguing of all, what they think of one another.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Obsessed with bad politics
- By Erik on 09-07-20
By: Michael Booth
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Servants
- A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times
- By: Lucy Lethbridge
- Narrated by: Helen Stern
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 139
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 132
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 131
From the immense staff running a lavish Edwardian estate and the lonely maid-of-all-work cooking in a cramped middle-class house to the poor child doing chores in a slightly less poor household, servants were essential to the British way of life. They were hired not only for their skills but also to demonstrate the social standing of their employers - even as they were required to tread softly and blend into the background. More than simply the laboring class serving the upper crust - as popular culture would have us believe - they were a diverse group that shaped and witnessed major changes in the modern home, family, and social order.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting but gaps in info, narration difficult
- By redsrule1 on 01-11-15
By: Lucy Lethbridge
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Ask a Historian
- 50 Surprising Answers to Things You Always Wanted to Know
- By: Greg Jenner
- Narrated by: Dan Schreiber, Greg Jenner, Janina Ramirez, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
Responding to fifty genuine questions from the public, Greg Jenner takes you on an entertaining tour through history from the Stone Age to the Swinging Sixties, revealing the best and most surprising stories, facts and historical characters from the past. From ancient joke books, African empires and the invention of meringues, to mummies, mirrors and menstrual pads—Ask A Historian is a deliciously amusing and informative smorgasbord of historical curiosities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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best bonus content ever!
- By Matthew K Wendelken on 03-24-22
By: Greg Jenner
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Surviving Ireland
- By: Colm Tobin
- Narrated by: Colm Tobin
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
It's exhausting being Irish. The constant self-flagellation is enough to put anybody off their breakfast. Why are we so hard on ourselves? Is it the postcolonial overhang following centuries of oppression at the hands of a litany of foreign invaders? Or is it collective guilt for sending Westlife out into the wider world? In Surviving Ireland, acclaimed comedy writer Colm Tobin takes the listener by the hand for a satirical romp through modern Irish life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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very fun
- By Rick on 06-12-19
By: Colm Tobin
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Queer City
- Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Will Watt
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
In Queer City, the acclaimed Peter Ackroyd looks at London in a whole new way - through the complete history and experiences of its gay and lesbian population. In Roman Londinium, the city was dotted with lupanaria (“wolf dens” or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels), and thermiae (hot baths). Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops, monks, and missionaries. And so began an endless loop of alternating permissiveness and censure.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Be Gay, Do Crimes: A History
- By Franklin on 10-13-18
By: Peter Ackroyd
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The Italians
- By: John Hooper
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 137
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 122
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Story4 out of 5 stars 122
John Hooper's marvelously entertaining and perceptive new book is ideal for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy and the unique character of the Italians. Looking at the facts that lie behind and often belie the stereotypes, his revealing book sheds new light on many aspects of Italian life: football and Freemasonry, sex, symbolism, and the reason Italian has twelve words for a coat hanger yet none for a hangover.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mi piace molto!
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-30-16
By: John Hooper