John Lloyd

Presents a whimsical compendium of popular misconceptions, misunderstandings, and common mistakes based on "common knowledge," culled from the fields of history, science, literature, and biography, presenting such "helpful" facts as French toast comes from Rome, camels originated in North America, coffee is not made from beans, and more. 80,000 first printing.

A rollicking, thought-provoking dictionary for the modern age, featuring definitions for those things we don't have words for, from the New York Times bestselling author behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, and TV producer John Lloyd. Does the sensation of Tingrith(1) make you yelp? Do you bend sympathetically when you see someone Ahenny(2)? Can you deal with a Naugatuck(3) without causing a Toronto(4)? Will you suffer from Kettering(5) this summer? Probably. You are almost certainly familiar with all these experiences but just didn't know that there are words for them. Well, in fact, there aren't--or rather there weren't, until Douglas Adams and John Lloyd decided to plug these egregious linguistic lacunae(6). They quickly realized that just as there are an awful lot of experiences that no one has a name for, so there are an awful lot of names for places you will never need to go to. What a waste. As responsible citizens of a small and crowded world, we must all learn the virtues of recycling(7) and put old, worn-out but still serviceable names to exciting, vibrant, new uses. This is the book that does that for you: The Deeper Meaning of Liff--a whole new solution to the problem of Great Wakering(8) 1--The feeling of aluminum foil against your fillings. 2--The way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves. 3--A plastic packet containing shampoo, mustard, etc., which is impossible to open except by biting off the corners. 4--Generic term for anything that comes out in a gush, despite all your efforts to let it out carefully, e.g., flour into a white sauce, ketchup onto fish, a dog into the yard, and another naughty meaning that we can't put on the cover. 5--The marks left on your bottom and thighs after you've been sitting sunbathing in a wicker chair. 6--God knows what this means 7--For instance, some of this book was first published in Britain twenty-six years ago. 8--Look it up yourself.

Nothing more grimly highlights the terrible state of relations between the British press and the Government than the autumn 2003 Hutton Inquiry into the tragic death of weapons expert David Kelly. Indeed, as John Lloyd argues in this timely and deeply controversial book, the media are now no longer functioning as an inquiring check on the excesses of the political class. Instead they have become an alternative establishment, one supremely dedicated to a theatrical distrust of individual politicians and a furious and calculated indifference to the real-life intricacies of world policy-making. That the media have emerged today as a powerful and largely unaccountable force in British public life is undeniable. But here Lloyd takes things further and puts forward the case, persuasively and aggressively, that the composition and background of the media elite, and the growing emphasis on profit in the companies for which they work, have created an idol that takes as its sacrifice justice and balance, and deprives the public of the information they need in order to act as responsible citizens.

This book will change your life. The Deeper Meaning of Liff is a specially updated edition of Douglas Adams and John Lloyd's humorous lexicon of things there should be words for. A beloved classic, The Deeper Meaning of Liff contains illustrations from Private Eye cartoonist Bert Kitchen.