David Pickering

Martin H. Manser

A more-ishly browsable collection of words and phrases, linguistic quirks, lexical oddities and syntactic surprises. Our langauge is one of delight and curiosity. BUTTERING PARSNIPS, TWOCKING CHAVS is a guided tour of English, exploring the origins of words, their changing meaning, lexical peculiarities, word games and lost words, presented in lists, small passages of narrative text, amusing quotations and nuggets of amazing facts. This must-have compendium shows that words have a matchless power to entertain. Here you will find enough new words and phrases to last a lifetime. Idioms frolic beside cliches, catchphrases, proverbs, eponyms, acronyms, spoonerisms and split infinitives. Text messages cavort alongside business jargon and rap slang to produce a language that is both witty and bizarre, and sometimes frankly outstanding. So whether you're a yuppie or a woopie, a sinbad or dinky, a spod or even a wazzock, these pages will provide endless hours of delight and fascination.

Buttering Parsnips, Twocking Chavs

The Secret Life of the English Language

Andrew Pickering

The fascinating story of one of England's darkest times.

The Persecution of Witches in England

Witch Hunt

Introduces the world of model making with LEGOs, featuring life-size sculptures of dinosaurs, monuments, buildings, and other items.

The Ultimate LEGO Book

Delivered at the Universalist Chapel, in Providence, R. I.

Lectures in Defence of Divine Revelation

The Penguin Dictionary of First Names (Penguin Reference)

Within the rambling house of words and language we all too often expect to find doors with forbidding-sounding signs on them: 'Spelling', 'Grammar', 'Syntax', 'Etymology', 'Phonetics' and the like - signs that discourage rather than invite entry. But behind these heavy doors the house of words and language is a place of delight and curiosity: on closer inspection its shelves are revealed to be groaning not with dry and dusty tomes exhorting correctness of grammar and usage but with more toothsome reading-matter: intriguing tales of unexpected word and phrase origins; light-hearted explorations of the pleasures of wordplay; listings of lexical peculiarities, from 'ghost letters' to words that have no rhymes; and accounts and examples of the myriad types of English, from slang to jargon, and from gobbledegook to text messaging.Buttering Parsnips, Twocking Chavs is a guided tour of the English language, arranged in 'seven ages' (chapters), tracing the 'birth' of words (alphabets, word origins, etc.), their youthful playfulness and occasional misdemeanours (word games, misspellings, etc.) and various other stages of language 'life', culminating in death (last words, lost words, etc.) and reincarnation (words that have changed their meaning). Within each of these chapters clusters of loosely related material are presented in a range of different forms - lists, small passages of narrative text, amusing quotations and nuggets of amazing facts.

This acclaimed 180,000-word A-Z dictionary is a comprehensive and highly readable guide to witchcraft, revealing the historical reality beneath the popular stereotypes of old hags, broomsticks, and black cats. Complete with biographies of notorious witches and descriptions of their covens, familiars, spells and practices, it also contains colourful accounts of infamous trials and all the associated paraphernalia of witch-hunting, torture and persecution across Europe and colonial America. A first-class source book for the historian, folklorist and casual reader alike, it shows in vivid and bloody detail how witchcraft hysteria swept the western world in the post-medieval period and has continued to resurface into modern times.

Dictionary of Witchcraft

Alphabetically arranged entries explain approximately two thousand words and expressions from the Bible and from the mythology of the Greek, Roman, and Norse cultures among others.

The Facts On File Dictionary of Classical and Biblical Allusions

Judy Falls

As Charles Frazier's novel Cold Mountain dramatized, dissenters from the Confederacy lived in mortal danger throughout the South. In scattered pockets from the Carolinas to the frontier in Texas, these dissenters, or "brush men," often died at the hands of their own neighbors as a result of their belief in the Union or an unwillingness to preserve the slaveholding Confederacy. Brush Men and Vigilantes: Civil War Dissent in Texas tells the story of how dissent, fear, and economics developed into mob violence in the Sulphur Forks river valley northeast of Dallas. Authors David Pickering and Judy Falls have combed through court records, newspapers, letters, and other primary sources and have collected extended-family lore to relate the details of how vigilantes captured and killed more than a dozen men. Betrayed by links to a well-known Union guerilla, many dissenters were captured, tried in mock courts, and hanged. Still others met their death by sniper fire or private execution. Their story begins before the Civil War, as they describe the particular social and economic conditions that gave rise to tension and violence during the war. Four more chapters follow, each detailing the horror and hysteria that characterized post-Civil War Texas.

Civil War Dissent in Texas

Brush Men and Vigilantes

Rosalind Fergusson

A comprehensive and easy-to-use thesaurus, containing over 300,000 synonyms and antonyons, and covering standard and colloqusal english and slang.

The New Penguin Thesaurus

Mark Hawkins-Dady

Leanda Shrimpton

Helen Ottaway

Judith M. Kass

This volume includes actors, directors and designers and contains 300 entries, each of which includes biographical information on the individual, a complete list of roles and/or theatre productions, and a bibliography critical books and articles about the entrant.

International Dictionary of Theatre: Actors, directors, and designers

Provides pronunciations, origins, and meanings for words and phrases from foreign sources, ranging from such everyday terms as "dollar," to words in the news and the specialized languages of cooking, music, the arts, and the law.

The Facts On File Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases

A Sermon [on Ps. viii. 4] delivered ... November 8, 1818

Lists more than 5,000 names from classic favorites to more esoteric choices, providing facts and stories illuminating each name's meaning while listing popular celebrity names and top 10 names throughout the centuries. Original.

The Penguin Book of Baby Names

20 terrifying tales of horror written by such masters of the genre as Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and Ambrose Bierce. Steel your nerves for encounters with ghouls, werewolves, invisible vampires, screaming skulls, monstrous slugs and, not least of all, the cruelty and murderous nastiness of your fellow-man. Ideal reading for newcomers to the horror story and aficionados alike. A companion volume to 'Classic Horror Stories', 'Classic Ghost Stories', 'Classic Ghost Stories 2' and 'Classic Short Stories'.

Classic Horror Stories 2

Perfect Family Quiz is an invaluable source of entertainment for the whole family. Whether you're looking for a fun way to spend a rainy day, an activity for a long car journey, or you simply want to improve your general knowledge, Perfect Family Quiz has all the questions and answers. With topics ranging from Beatrix Potter to Harry Potter, and from prime ministers to prime-time TV, this easy-to-use quiz book will provide hours of fun for everyone. The Perfect series is a range of practical guides that give clear and straightforward advice on everything from getting your first job to choosing your baby's name. Written by experienced authors offering tried-and-tested tips, each book contains all you need to get it right first time.

Perfect Family Quiz

Helena Spiteri

A wide-ranging collection of questions and answers covers science, technology, history, sports, and the arts

1001 Questions & Answers

Of all the decisions a new parent makes, choosing that special name is the most significant and the most rewarding. A new reference book for prospective parents, this clear, helpful and easy-to-use A-Z guide gives you thousands of brilliant suggestions for picking the perfect name for your new arrival. It also includes appendices of the top ten names through the centuries and the most popular celebrity names.

David Pickering

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