How to Sound Really Clever
600 Words You Need to Know
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Information
Published:25th Aug '16
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
The sequel to How to Sound Clever, this book explains how to master 600 more words that you pretend to know but you really don't. Witty and entertaining, How to Sound Really Clever elucidates and illustrates the meaning of tricky words such as 'adumbrate', 'myrmidon' or 'vastation'.
Outfoxed by words like condign, Zelig-like and agitprop? Unsure of the true meanings of nonplussed, disinterested and gauntlet? How to Sound Really Clever explains over 600 words that you really ought to know but haven’t had time to look up in the dictionary. In this sequel to the bestselling How to Sound Clever, author Hubert van den Bergh brings together more words that have made him raise an admiring eyebrow when hearing them trip off other people’s tongues, or smile when seeing them in newsprint. The stories behind the everyday words that pepper this book may surprise you – like that behind pastiche (and why it derives from the Italian for ‘piecrust’) – and will help you clear up those linguistic riddles that no one around a dinner table ever seems to be able to explain.
A very handy resource when you need to make those fine distinctions between the ego and the superego, if you can’t tell your exogenous from your endogenous or need to understand what makes for a diegetic soundtrack in a film. How to Sound Really Clever is a teasing mixture of the half-familiar and the intriguingly obscure, and it’s all done with a light touch. -- Philip Gooden * Author *
This witty book is an alphabetical list of less usual words and expressions which might impress others. Some are recondite, some are more familiar, with clear definitions and guidance on usage. I loved it. -- Dr Bernard Lamb * President of the Queen's English Society *
ISBN: 9781472922472
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 248g
224 pages