It is surprising how much of everyday conversation consists of repetitive expressions such as 'thank you', 'sorry', would you mind?' and their many variants. However commonplace they may be, they do have important functions in communication. This thorough study draws upon original data from the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English to provide a discoursal and pragmatic account of the more common expressions found in conversational routines, such as apologising, thanking, requesting and offering. The routines studied in this book range from conventionalized or idiomatized phrases to those which can be generated by grammar. Examples have been taken from face-to-face conversations, radio discussions and telephone conversations, and transcription has been based upon the prosodic system of Crystal (1989). An extensive introduction provides the theory and methodology for the book and discusses the criteria for fixedness, grammatical analysis, and pragmatic functions of conversational routines which are later applied to the phrases. Following chapters deal specifically with phrases for thanking, apologising, indirect requests, and discourse-organising markers for conversational routines, on the basis of empirical investigation of the data from the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English.

Introducing “action adventure icon” Mack Bolan as he wages a one-man war against the Mafia—in the first three books of the million-selling series (Los Angeles Times). In the jungles of Southeast Asia, no sniper was more ruthless than Mack Bolan. After twelve years in-country, with ninety-five confirmed kills, the Special Forces sergeant returns to the United States only to find that his father has gone berserk, slaughtering his family before taking his own life. But Bolan knows his old man was no killer: He was under pressure from a gang of Mafia thugs who were after his money—and willing to destroy his life to get it. For the sake of his father, Bolan declares war on the men who drove him mad . . . Now in one volume, these are the first three action-packed novels in the long-running series that has sold more than 200 million copies. If you’re a fan of Rambo, James Bond, or Jack Reacher, it’s time to meet the one and only Mack Bolan—an elite operative with a haunted past pitted against legions of mobsters no one else can take down.

In the story of every great company and career, there is one defining moment when luck and skill collide. This book is about making that moment happen. According to Frans Johansson’s research, successful people and organizations show a common theme. A lucky moment occurs and they take advantage of it to change their fate. Consider how Diane von Furstenberg saw Julie Nixon Eisenhower on TV wearing a matching skirt and top, and created the timeless, elegant wrap-dress. That was a “click moment” of unexpected opportunity. Johansson uses stories from throughout history to illustrate the specific actions we can take to create more click moments, place lots of high-potential bets, open ourselves up to chance encounters, and harness the complex forces of success that follow.