This book will teach you the practical riches of saying it well with good words, neglected words, precise words for vocabular exaltation.

A collection of unusual and amusing words.

'Words are not only tools; they are also weapons.' Peter Bowler's guides, as his thousands of fans worldwide already know, are witty, charming, and clever volumes that introduce weird and wonderful words. Now the three volumes are published in a collected edition for the first time to provide words to help you wriggle out of sticky debates, deal with obnoxious dinner guests and fill in sick leave application forms with panache. A picturesque panoply of words of which neither you nor anyone else has ever heard, Bowler provides not only an expanded range of words themselves, but also a genuine sense how to employ them to devastating effect. The Completely Superior Person's Book of Words is an arsenal of over a thousand sonifacient verbal weapons with which to verbigerate your friends and gorgonise your enemies.

Bowler provides an entertaining and edifying dictionary of superior words for vocabular exultation. In other words, a collection of more than 500 perfectly precise but often neglected words from acerebral to zzxjoanw. Godine.

"With his customary wit and clear-sightedness, Bowler cuts a swath through the thickets of popular jargon, casting daylight on such linguistic deformities as "interrogate with prejudice" (that is, torture) and "unforeseen geological event" (a mining disaster). Impatient with euphemism, he examines ugly specimens forced into bloom in the interests of political correctness - "waitperson," "developmentally challenged" - designed to help the squeamish avoid direct confrontation with the simple facts of sex and disability. Here are circumlocutions that make the disagreeable seem agreeable, the unacceptable acceptable, and here is Peter Bowler, as always, trying to set the record, and the English language, straight."--BOOK JACKET.

ADULT LITERACY GUIDES & HANDBOOKS. This is a tongue-in-cheek guide to words that any smart, well-educated, pretentious person should be able to drop into cocktail conversation.The reader is encouraged to toss off words such as 'Disestablishmentarianism', 'descant', and 'autodidactic', proving, if not the value of a good education, at least the appearance of a good education.Each word is accompanied by a pronunciation guide and a sentence illustrating its use. Some of the sentences are made up, while others are well-known quotations.