Author: Patricia T. O'Conner
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812978102
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
Do you cringe when a talking head pronounces “niche” as NITCH? Do you get bent out of shape when your teenager begins a sentence with “and”? Do you think British spellings are more “civilised” than the American versions? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re myth-informed. In Origins of the Specious, word mavens Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman reveal why some of grammar’s best-known “rules” aren’t—and never were—rules at all. This playfully witty, rigorously researched book sets the record straight about bogus word origins, politically correct fictions, phony français, fake acronyms, and more. Here are some shockers: “They” was once commonly used for both singular and plural, much the way “you” is today. And an eighteenth-century female grammarian, of all people, is largely responsible for the all-purpose “he.” From the Queen’s English to street slang, this eye-opening romp will be the toast of grammarphiles and the salvation of grammarphobes. Take our word for it.
Author: John J. May
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781907179716
Category : Evolution
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
Author: Kenneth W. Kemp
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532694989
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
One of the prevailing myths of modern intellectual and cultural history is that there has been a long-running war between science and religion, particularly over evolution. This book argues that what is mistaken as a war between science and religion is actually a pair of wars between other belligerents—one between evolutionists and anti-evolutionists and another between atheists and Christians. In neither of those wars can one align science with one side and religion or theology with the other. This book includes a review of the encounter of Christian theology with the pre-Darwinian rise of historical geology, an account of the origins of the warfare myth, and a careful discussion of the salient historical events on which the myth-makers rely—the Huxley-Wilberforce exchange, the Scopes Trial and the larger anti-evolutionist campaign in which it was embedded, and the more recent curriculum wars precipitated by the proponents of Creation Science and of Intelligent-Design Theory.
Author: David Bentley Hart
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300155646
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
Religious scholar Hart argues that contemporary antireligious polemics are based not only upon conceptual confusions but upon facile simplifications of history and provides a powerful antidote to the New Atheists' misrepresentations of the Christian past.
Author: Peter Washington
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 9780805210248
Category : Occultism
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Just before the turn of the century, a renegade Russian aristocrat named Madame Blavatsky came to America claiming that man was descended not from the ape but from spiritual beings. Thus began Theosophy, the very first "new age" religion. This thought-provoking and often hilarious study delineates the course of Theosophy and other sects which have come down through the years. Photos.
Author: Anthony M. Ludovici
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781646066674
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 172
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Book Description
First published as a series of articles in The South African Observer in the 1960s, this work provides a fascinating historical-philosophical analysis of the origin of modern liberalism. Starting with an analysis of what liberalism is, this book reviews the ideological origin--among the upper classes of society--of the notion of liberalism, and then moves through its historical development to the present day, where, he concludes, the "worst misapprehension of all is to suppose that all this Liberal misunderstanding of human nature can possibly fail in the end to pervert and corrupt the nation and wipe out all the accumulated treasure in virtue and sanity which has been fostered and stored during former, more rational and more tasteful times." As the author says in the preface: "Among the many remarkable changes witnessed in my lifetime, none has struck me more forcibly than that which has occurred in the relative importance of Religion and Politics. "For, whereas in my childhood and youth religion was still the principal field where fervour and fanaticism reigned, it has been my fate to see political doctrines and ideologies completely supersede it in all adult minds. "In my youth there was certainly hostility and rivalry between Liberals and Conservatives; but however bitter the antagonism, it never went to the length of branding the other side as "indecent", "disreputable" or actually "despicable". Yet to-day Liberalism has attained to this height of arrogance and presumption. "This book is therefore an attempt in this eleventh hour of expiring sanity to expose (he false assumptions and truculent vacuity of these very tenets and principles, and to outline a constructive means of combating them."
Author: Jordan Almond
Publisher: Citadel Press
ISBN: 9780806517131
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
This dictionary gives the intriguing origins of hundreds of everyday words and expressions. Useful for reference and fun just for browsing, Dictionary of Word Origins is also a great way to expand vocabulary and enjoy doing it.
Author: Boltini
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781916166813
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: William Morris
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006015862X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 516
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Book Description
The Morrises, well-known lexicographers, published a dictionary of the same title in 1977, a revision of a three-volume work published between 1962 and 1971. This new revision, which provides histories of interesting words and phrases in the English language, is similar in concept to several books by John Ciardi. Like Ciardi's works, the etymologies and phrase origins are presented in a readable style, making them a joy to browse.
Author: David Crystal
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250003474
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
Presents a history of English spelling through chapters that cover such topics as the introduction of the Roman alphabet, each letter's origins, and the development of long and short vowels.
