When punk rock star Ian Dury disappeared to make films in the late 80s, he left his teenage son in the care of his roadie, in a rundown flat in Hammersmith. But this was no ordinary roadie; this was the Sulphate Strangler. The Strangler, having taken a lot of LSD in the 60s, was prone to depression, anger and hallucinations. He was also, as the name suggests, a drug dealer. What could possibly go wrong? In a period that we can now only imagine, a young Baxter ricocheted from one adventure to another, narrowly swerving one disaster only immediately to collide with another. At times, his situation was perilous in the extreme - the world is lucky to have him at all. Chaise Longue is an intimate account of those escapades, evocatively illuminating a bohemian west London populated with feverishly grubby characters.

The definitive pronouncement on more than 1,500 of our most commonly mispronounced words. From the language maven Charles Harrington Elster comes an authoritative and unapologetically opinionated look at American speech. As Elster points out, there is no sewer in connoisseur, no dip in diphthong, and no pronoun in pronunciation. The culmination of twenty years of observation and study, The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations is more than just a pronunciation guide. Elster discusses past and present usage, alternatives, analogies, and tendencies and offers plenty of advice, none of it objective. Whether you are adamant or ambivalent about the spoken word, Elster arms you with the information you need to decide what is acceptable for you. The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations has now been expanded and revised and features nearly 200 new words, including: al-Qaeda bruschetta commensurate coup de grace curriculum vita exacerbate gigabyte hara-kiri machismo Muslim Niger Pinochet Pulitzer sorbet tinnitus w (as in www-dot) and many, many more. Charles Harrington Elster is the pronunciation editor of Black's Law Dictionary and the author of various books about language, including Verbal Advantage, There's a Word for It, and What in the Word? He has been a guest columnist on language for the Boston Globe and the New York Times Magazine and a commentator on NPR and hundreds of radio shows around the country.

In the most reliable and readable guide to effective writing for the Americans of today, Wilson answers questions of meaning, grammar, pronunciation, punctuation, and spelling in thousands of clear, concise entries. His guide is unique in presenting a systematic, comprehensive view of language as determined by context. Wilson provides a simple chart of contexts—from oratorical speech to intimate, from formal writing to informal—and explains in which contexts a particular usage is appropriate, and in which it is not. The Columbia Guide to Standard American English provides the answers to questions about American English the way no other guide can with: * an A–Z format for quick reference; * over five thousand entries, more than any other usage book; * sensible and useful advice based on the most current linguistic research; * a convenient chart of levels of speech and writing geared to context; * both descriptive and prescriptive entries for guidance; * guidelines for nonsexist usage; * individual entries for all language terms. A vibrant description of how our language is being spoken and written at the end of the twentieth century—and how we ourselves can use it most effectively—The Columbia Guide to Standard American English is the ideal handbook to language etiquette: friendly, sensible, and reliable.

Provides instructions, photographs, and diagrams for completing upholstery jobs that range from stripping and reupholstering to fixing a simple tear.

An illustrated monthly magazine in the interest of better art, better work and a better more reasonable way of living.

This book isn't anything you have to memorize. As Catherine Ostrower, who teaches French at Wesleyan and was proofreading the book, wrote to the author: "THIS BOOK IS JUST SO MUCH FUN TO READ " It gives you the fascinating stories of English words that came from French, often words you would never have dreamt were French (like important, relay, stereotype, surrender, stranger, similar, and delicious). It tells you how these words evolved, how they arrived in English, and how they changed once in English. Think of these fascinating stories as a little treat for when you just feel like reading something interesting. Books in this Series by Saul H. Rosenthal The Rules for the Gender of French Nouns (3rd revised edition) Speaking Better French: Faux Amis Speaking Better French: More Faux Amis Speaking Better French: Still More Faux Amis French Faux Amis: The Combined Book Speaking Better French: The Key Words and Expressions Speaking Better French: More Key Words and Expressions French Key Words and Expressions: The Combined Book All the French You Use Without Knowing It