Product Description: The Devil's Dictionary is a satirical dictionary written by American journalist and author Ambrose Bierce. Originally published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book, it features Bierce's witty and often ironic spin on many common English words...read more

Product Description: The Devil's Dictionary is a satirical dictionary written by American journalist and author Ambrose Bierce. Originally published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book, it features Bierce's witty and often ironic spin on many common English words...read more

Product Description: "The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary" is a virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, offering some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Ambrose Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth...read more

Product Description: From antidisestablishmentarianism to zo, a unrivaled collection of today's greatest words! Have you ever wondered what the longest word in the dictionary is? Or the origin of your go-to curse word? With The Book of Word Records, you'll uncover hundreds of bizarre, ugly, gross, and otherwise extreme words that have what it takes to break some serious records...read more

Fresh-squeezed Lexicology, with TwistsNo man of letters savors the ABC’s, or serves them up, like language-loving humorist Roy Blount Jr. His glossary, from ad hominy to zizz, is hearty, full bodied, and out to please discriminating palates coarse and fine. In 2008, he celebrated the gists, tangs, and energies of letters and their combinations in Alphabet Juice, to wide acclaim. Now, Alphabetter Juice. Which is better.This book is for anyone—novice wordsmith, sensuous reader, or career grammarian—who loves to get physical with words. What is the universal sign of disgust, ew, doing in beautiful and cutie? Why is toadless, but not frogless, in the Oxford English Dictionary? How can the U. S. Supreme Court find relevance in gollywoddles? Might there be scientific evidence for the sonicky value of hunch? And why would someone not bother to spell correctly the very word he is trying to define on Urbandictionary.com?Digging into how locutions evolve, and work, or fail, Blount draws upon everything from The Tempest to The Wire. He takes us to Iceland, for salmon-watching with a “girl gillie,” and to Georgian England, where a distinguished etymologist bites off more of a “giantess” than he can chew. Jimmy Stewart appears, in connection with kludge and the bombing of Switzerland. Litigation over supercalifragilisticexpialidocious leads to a vintage werewolf movie; news of possum-tossing, to metanarrative.As Michael Dirda wrote in The Washington Post Book World, “The immensely likeable Blount clearly possesses what was called in the Italian Renaissance ‘sprezzatura,’ that rare and enviable ability to do even the most difficult things without breaking a sweat.” Alphabetter Juice is brimming with sprezzatura. Have a taste.

Product Description: A new and beautifully illustrated collection of bitter, biting definitions to celebrate the centenary of The Devil’s Dictionary Ambrose Bierce’s classic The Devil’s Dictionary first appeared in its entirety in 1911. Its caustic wit and arch tone have ensured steady popularity and sales to this day...read more

Based on the popular column in Atlantic Monthly, a humorous celebration of the English language looks at a series of recreational word coinages--none of which have been officially accepted into the language--ranging from 'swervousness,' the fear of running over squirrels, to 'skivvy-dipping,' going through the dirty clothes hamper to find something clean. 30,000 first printing.

Ali G: How many words does you know?Noam Chomsky: Normally, humans, by maturity, have tens of thousands of them.Ali G: What is some of 'em?—Da Ali G Show Did you know that both mammal and matter derive from baby talk? Have you noticed how wince makes you wince? Ever wonder why so many h-words have to do with breath? Roy Blount Jr. certainly has, and after forty years of making a living using words in every medium, print or electronic, except greeting cards, he still can’t get over his ABCs. In Alphabet Juice, he celebrates the electricity, the juju, the sonic and kinetic energies, of letters and their combinations. Blount does not prescribe proper English. The franchise he claims is “over the counter.” Three and a half centuries ago, Thomas Blount produced Blount’s Glossographia, the first dictionary to explore derivations of English words. This Blount’s Glossographia takes that pursuit to other levels, from Proto-Indo-European roots to your epiglottis. It rejects the standard linguistic notion that the connection between words and their meanings is “arbitrary.” Even the word arbitrary is shown to be no more arbitrary, at its root, than go-to guy or crackerjack. From sources as venerable as the OED (in which Blount finds an inconsistency, at whisk) and as fresh as Urbandictionary.com (to which Blount has contributed the number-one definition of alligator arm), and especially from the author’s own wide-ranging experience, Alphabet Juice derives an organic take on language that is unlike, and more fun than, any other.

A collection of old and new words features words to be said in singing moods, words for times of day, and rude names for nitwits, and defines such words as gongoozler, tantony, and cosse

Product Description: Collier Books paperback. Comedy illustrated.

Product Description: Defining hip-hop words with funny four-color illustrations, HIP-HOP FOR DOGS is informative and hilarious. Each pooch in HIP-HOP FOR DOGS teaches the reader slang words that have their origins in the hip-hop communities and have become part of society's daily lexicon.

Product Description: There’s no such thing as too much redneck. And it’s easy to understand why. A veritable gumbo of indigenous ingenuity, this deliciously distinct dialect rolls off the tongue like drool in the presence of a barbecue sandwich. Now, just in time for no time in particular, Jeff Foxworthy’s three bestsellers are rolled into one hilarious redneck reference...read more

Product Description: We all invent words and coin phrases; it’s how language evolves. Taken from the popular website by the same name, Addictionary: Brave New Words collects the best of these neologisms into this handy volume, organized into categories (including technology, politics, dating, sports, religion, and medicine) and cleverly illustrated throughout...read more

Product Description: Whether you are a Baractogenarian (an Obama supporter over the age of twenty) or an Obombre (a Spanish-speaking male who supports Obama), you'll cherish this indispensable guide to one of the greatest Obomenons in American politics...read more

Product Description: Women the world over have been nursing a powerful addiction—to DailyCandy.com. A daily email newsletter covering absolutely everything (from lacy bras that actually fit to restaurant openings to children's museums), it's the ultimate insider's guide to what's new and undiscovered...read more

In a third zany parody of traditional pocket dictionaries, the popular comedian draws on material from his hit TV show Blue Collar TV to present an all-new selection of whimsical 'Redneck' definitions for such terms as 'yahoo' and 'tenuous.' 350,000 first printing.

In a second zany parody of traditional pocket dictionaries, the popular comedian draws on material from his hit TV show Blue Collar TV to present an all-new selection of whimsical 'Redneck' definitions for such terms as 'initiate,' 'masterpieces,' and 'handsome.' Reprint.

A whimsical compendium of invented words, first published in 1914, presents a selection of linguistic inventions, some of which have become part of everyday language usage, along with detailed definitions, concise essays outlining the usages of each word, and ingenious poems demonstrating the word in action.