Wobbly Bits is the essential guide to polite conversation. Covering everything from the politically incorrect to the seriously taboo, this humorous book offers over 3,000 ways to avoid speaking your mind!
Author: John Ayto
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0713678402
Category: Language Arts & Disciplines
Page: 352
View: 165
Wobbly Bits is the essential guide to polite conversation. Covering everything from the politically incorrect to the seriously taboo, this humorous book offers over 3,000 ways to avoid speaking your mind! Keep this book as your secret weapon (that 'distinguished, cosmetically different person of size' your friend keeps mentioning might just not be your ideal date!), and you'll never be caught out again! Subjects covered include crime, sins, sex, the body and its parts, clothing and nakedness, bodily functions and secretions, illness and injury, old age and death, work, poverty, government and politics, warfare and race.
Any book such as this one draws on the work of others. ... Mass Education
conference (Baltimore, August 1998) Ayto, John, Wobbly Bits and Other Euphemisms (London: A & C Black, 2007) Bache, Richard Meade, Vulgarisms
and Other Errors ...
Author: Ralph Keyes
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 9781848544567
Category: History
Page: 300
View: 528
We say a lot about ourselves by what we don't say. Words and phrases like 'collateral damage', 'wardrobe malfunction', 'vertically challenged', and old favourites like 'unmentionables' (trousers, apparently) or 'lady of the night' - all are ways of not using particular words. UNMENTIONABLES is a rollicking exploration of the history of euphemistic usage, looking at how taboos connected to sex, death, religion, war, politics, business and matters of status have produced an extraordinary linguistic creativity, and how euphemistic speech has changed over the centuries. It looks at how euphemisms are born, and how they die (or 'experience a negative outcome') and it explores why it is that we create euphemisms, and the different purposes - from the benign to the sinister - that they serve. (Is 'euphemism' a euphemism for lying?) Lively, entertaining, and crammed with fascinating nuggets of information, UNMENTIONABLES is a celebration of the richness of language. Why have just one word for something when you can have ten other words instead?
... A Dictionary of Euphemisms , Oxford : Oxford University Press , 1987 , 2007 ,
269 , 285 , 294 ; Ann Bertram , NTC's Dictionary of Euphemisms , Chicago : NTC ,
1998 , 1999 , 59 , 163 , 271 , 281 ; Ayto , Wobbly Bits and Other Euphemisms ...
Author: Ralph Keyes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780190466770
Category: Language Arts & Disciplines
Page: 320
View: 923
Successful word-coinages--those that stay in currency for a good long time--tend to conceal their beginnings. We take them at face value and rarely when and where they were first minted. Engaging, illuminating, and authoritative, Ralph Keyes's The Hidden History of Coined Words explores the etymological underworld of terms and expressions and uncovers plenty of hidden gems. He also finds some fascinating patterns, such as that successful neologisms are as likely to be created by chance as by design. A remarkable number of new words were coined whimsically, originally intended to troll or taunt. Knickers, for example, resulted from a hoax; big bang from an insult. Casual wisecracking produced software, crowdsource, and blog. More than a few resulted from happy accidents, such as typos, mistranslations, and mishearing (bigly and buttonhole), or from being taken entirely out of context (robotics). Neologizers (a Thomas Jefferson coinage) include not just scholars and writers but cartoonists, columnists, children's book authors. Wimp originated with a book series, as did goop, and nerd from a book by Dr. Seuss. Coinages are often contested, controversy swirling around such terms as gonzo, mojo, and booty call. Keyes considers all contenders, while also leading us through the fray between new word partisans, and those who resist them strenuously. He concludes with advice about how to make your own successful coinage. The Hidden History of Coined Words will appeal not just to word mavens but history buffs, trivia contesters, and anyone who loves the immersive power of language.
Author: Eliecer Crespo-FernándezPublish On: 2015-08-27
Euphemistic and Dysphemistic Metaphors in Internet forums Eliecer Crespo-
Fernández ... Ayto, J. (2007), Wobbly Bits and Other Euphemisms: Over 3,000
Ways to Avoid Speaking Your Mind, London: A & C Black. Barcelona, A. (ed.) (
2000a) ...
Author: Eliecer Crespo-Fernández
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9781472596543
Category: Language Arts & Disciplines
Page: 240
View: 723
Metaphor has long provided a rich way to speak about the unspeakable, to refer to delicate issues. Sex is one such area. This book follows a cognitive-linguistic and relevance-theoretic approach to the language of sex, considering metaphor as a bridge that brings together mind and language. It does this through the analysis of the antithetical mechanisms of verbal mitigation and offence. These two mechanisms are (more commonly know as) euphemism and (its lesser known companion term) dysphemism. The volume reflects on the social and communicative functions that sexual metaphors perform in a sample of almost two hundred postings taken from internet forums. How do people think about sex? How do people avoid talking about sex? How do people paraphrase sexual topics? It offers an account of how real language users understand sexual taboo in present-day English and also a great grounding in manual corpus work on a qualitative level.
More than 400 idioms have been added to this new edition, and comprise recently coined and common sayings alike.
Author: John Ayto
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780192584380
Category: Reference
Page: 448
View: 718
What is it to 'cock a snook', where is the land of Nod, and who was first to go the extra mile? Find the answers to these questions (and many more!) in the new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms. This dictionary uncovers the meanings of myriad phrases and sayings that are used daily in the English language, encompassing more than 10,000 figurative expressions, similes, sayings, and proverbs. More than 400 idioms have been added to this new edition, and comprise recently coined and common sayings alike. New additions include 'back of the net', 'drag and drop', 'go it alone', 'how come?', 'if you ask me', 'make your skin crawl', and 'woe betide'. Illustrative quotations sourced from the Oxford corpora give contextual examples of the idioms and their standard usage, and many entries include background information on the origins of the idiom in question. An updated thematic index makes for easy navigation, and anyone who is interested in the origins and diversity of English vernacular will have hours of fun browsing this fascinating dictionary.
Did you know that 'flavour of the month' originated in a marketing campaign in American ice-cream parlours in the 1940s, when a particular flavour would be specially promoted for a month at a time? And did you know that 'off the cuff' refers to the rather messy practice of writing impromptu notes on one's shirt cuff before speaking in public? These and many more idioms are explained and put into context in this third edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms. The volume takes a fresh look at the idiomatic phrases and sayings that make English the rich and intriguing language that it is. This major new edition contains entries for over 6000 idioms, including 700 entirely new entries, based on Oxford's language monitoring and the ongoing third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. These include a range of recently established idioms such as 'the elephant in the corner', 'go figure', 'like a rat up a drainpipe', 'sex on legs', 'step up to the plate', 'too posh to push', 'a walk in the park', 'win ugly'. This edition also features a greatly increased number of cross-references, making it ideal for quick reference. Many entries include additional features which give more detailed background on the idiom in question. For example, did you know that 'taken aback' was adopted from nautical terminology that described a ship unable to move forward because of a strong headwind pressing its sails back against the mast? Anyone interested in the colourful side of the Englishlanguage will get hours of fun browsing from this fascinating and informative volume.
Drawing on the unique resources of the Oxford English Dictionary and offering coverage of over 6,000 slang words and expressions from the Cockney 'abaht' to the American term 'zowie', Stone the Crows is the most lively and authoritative dictionary of slang from the 20th and 21st centuries.
The highly acclaimed Oxford-Duden German Dictionary provides authoritative, comprehensive, and up-to-date coverage of modern English and German. The text has been designed to meet the needs of both English and German speakers, whether they wish to write or speak the foreign language ortranslate from it. This revised edition includes a full supplement detailing the changes to the German spelling system ratified in 1996. Over 260,000 words and phrases and 450,000 translations Comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of the general vocabulary of contemporary German and English Hundreds of example sentences showing words in use Extensive guidance on the selection of the correct translation Explanation of terms for which cultural or other differences prevent an exact translation Coverage of British and American English, and the German of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland Detailed grammatical information, including irregular plurals and past tenses Helpful appendices on a wide variety of subjects including: grammar, numerical expressions, weights and measures, and a letter-writing guide
... involves groups of reassuringly ordinary women being initiated into various
arts of femininity—make-up, convenience cookery, exercises to work off "those wobbly bits"—by a female ... The use of baby talk and twee euphemism is
revealing.
You don't catch them fuzzing up their mistakes with euphemisms and other artful
dodges . ... Or “ We haven't got the guts to break it off clean , so we're just
chipping it off a little bit at a time . ” " It developed rotational instability . ” The
unpleasant truth , screened by a facade of Latin - derived polysyllabics : “ It
began to wobble .
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: STANFORD:36105013137356
Category: Engineering design
Page:
View: 231
Vol. for 1955 includes an issue with title Product design handbook issue; 1956, Product design digest issue; 1957, Design digest issue.
Authoritative, accessible, and completely up to date, The Oxford Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms is an invaluable guide for anyone wanting to build their vocabulary and improve their writing skills. Over 140,000 alternative and opposite words are given with the closest, most frequentlyused synonyms listed first; in addition thousands of real-life examples of usage from the Oxford English Corpus enable the reader to pinpoint the relevant word quickly and easily.Also included are some useful appendices designed to improve your knowledge of the language: a new Wordfinder section offers a selection of thematic lists - from chemical elements and clothing to phobias and flowers - and a Common Confusables supplement explains the crucial differences betweensimilar words that are often mixed up.
imagine nothing more irritating to antagonists than to tell them Here is another
instance , taken from the conversation of ... but with our author's licence , euphemisms be fully persuaded in his own mind that those opinions do not have
been ... Take , as a last sample , this bit of revelation . ... We Collywobble , Mr.
Commissary Sparefeed , Tom Plethora , Mrs. Col. put all we know and think
about the Divine ...
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: STANFORD:36105007428308
Category:
Page:
View: 171
A weekly review of politics, literature, theology, and art.
A piece of excrement stuck to an anal hair , another version of ' clinker ' ( qv ) . ...
A euphemism for piss from a time when the word was considered bad language ,
when a child may have ' wissed himself and the old man may have come home ...
Author: Ray Puxley
Publisher: Robson Books Limited
ISBN: UOM:39015060019745
Category: English language
Page: 547
View: 969
In true Cockney style Ray Puxley has produced a wonderfully entertaining and authoritative A-Z of the best of British slang. Combining a rich source of old familiar expressions with many colourful new ones including 'con charge', 'bling-bling', 'kipper' and 'snoutcast', he takes a humorous, non-academic (and full frontal!) approach to the origins and meanings of this language of the street, the bar and the underworld, a phenomenon that has permeated all aspects of our language from dotcoms to school playgrounds.
delicacies , and a small lizard on the other side of the room ' s window glass . At
the age of ... I learned a bit of boxing and wrestling , but the threat was there . ... In
the hospitals euphemism , he ' forgot to breathe . ... I tried to exercise , walked
more to quiet the pounding in my chest , to get rid of a wobbly feeling in my legs .
His bifocals have slipped to perch on the end of his nose , and wobble with every
blustering snore . ... I listen to the latest developments on the American soap -
scene , the conversation dotted with euphemisms for the dirty bits in their daily ...
John Mitchinson has an occasional tightness of production and signs of a wobble
from time to time . ... a performance in which the word “ ensemble ” really means
something — and something other than a euphemism for second - rate singing .
D2 Primrose Hill , SD 4544 ; a self - evident instance of the common euphemistic
place - name . D1 Wag Hill , SD 4643 ; from the Modern English dialect adjective
wag , “ unstable , wobbly , ” alluding to the quaking movement of the surface of
the ... C2 Chat Hill , SD 4144 ; from Modern English dialect chat , “ a small thing ;
a little bit of wood or twig in the peat of the dried - out bog . ... Among these and
on sites similar to theirs are two place - names of a different type which can be
dated .
In Syracuse , N.Y. , police wondered why James Taylor , 65 , was a bit wobbly as
they booked him on gambling charges ... but when a reader protested that these
were distant euphemisms for God ( " And , by gosh , " says Svenson in surprise .
