Kirjahaku

How and where to use 500 of the words that make you sound more cultured, worldly, and downright smart. Whoever said sounding smart had to be painful? It's all in how you acquire the "ten-dollar words" of English. Smart Words makes fast and smooth learning of words such as prelapsarian, sedulous, sybaritic and draconian. How? By sticking to ultra-simple definitions, then offering a memorable--and often funny--description of when or why to use the word. A sample sentence shows you how. And the phonetics are a snap. Here's the description of sybaritic, defined as luxurious "Make that luxurious with a capital S. The word got its start from Sybaris, an ancient Greek city known for being a tad over the top in the pamper-me department." Whether you're a word lover, a fan of quirky reference books, or simply in need of a vocabulary makeover, Smart Words will help you be smart(er) about the words you use and the way you use them.

Have you been guilty of catachresis* at work? Have you defenestrated* your dictionary in frustration? Do you have phloem bundles* stuck in your diastema*? Scratching your occiput* now? Rod L. Evans's Thingamajigs and Whatchamacallits will help take the mystery out of some of our most obscure words. Containing hundreds of words from agitron (the phenomenon of wiggly lines in comic strips indicating that something is shaking) to zarf (the holder for a paper cone coffee cup), this lively reference will enable you to easily locate your thingamajig or whatchamacallit, be it animal, vegetable, mineral, or punctuation mark. Leave no linguistic oddity unexamined-your brain will thank you. *catachresis: strained, paradoxical, or incorrect use of a word; *defenestrate: to throw out a window; *phloem bundles: stringy bits between the skin and the edible parts of a banana; *diastema: the gap between teeth in a jaw; *occiput: the back part of the head or skull

How to sound like you're from here, no matter where you are in America "Simultaneously full of witty asides and linguistic erudition, Wicked Good Words is one of those rare books that you will read too fast and will find yourself wishing you could read for the first time all over again." -Ammon Shea, author of Reading the OED "As someone who grew up in the land of wicked pissa Sox games, what a delight it was to read about alligator pears, sundogs, piggling, sad cakes, doodinkus, jacklegs, and so many other American regionalisms." -David Wolman, author of Righting the Mother Tongue Wicked Good Words is a collection of words and phrases from places across the United States. Organized by region and peppered with engaging sidebars, it's a uniquely American road trip. You'll discover: *In Ohio, that titillating talk about a four-way is all about a type of chili. *When you rush the growler in Appalachia, you're filling your lunch pail with beer. *A frog strangler in the South will send you running for cover: it's a heavy rain. *In Louisiana and Texas, someone caught pirooting is nosing around. *In the Northwest, something that's spendy is too expensive. *A skeeter hawk, darning needle, snake feeder, spindle, ear sewer, needle, snake doctor, and stinger all refer to the same thing: a mosquito, depending on where you get attacked.