"Standard grammar and accurate spelling are widely considered hallmarks of a good education, but their exact definitions are much more contentious -- capable of inciting a full-blown grammar war at the splice of a comma, battles readily visible in the media and online in the comments of blogs and chat rooms. With an accessible and enthusiastic journalistic approach, Ostler considers these grammatical shibboleths, tracing current debates back to America's...

Welcome to Susanna Janssen's wondrous world of words. In Wordstruck! you'll find a wealth of entertaining reflections on language full of humor, imagination, and insight. Anything goes, from the genius of Shakespeare to the unintentional hilarity of linguistic faux pas; from musings on the bilingual brain to the poignant humor of her "Life in Words"; from translations gone riotously bad to English learners tortured by our mother tongue's inconstant...

"The Oxford English Dictionary contains 175,000 words in common usage and yet linguists estimate that a vocabulary of 3,000 is sufficient to cover ninety-five per cent of common usage in speech and print. Where have all those other words gone? The English language is a giant sponge, absorbing words from a multitude of different languages and cultures and yet it seems speakers of English are indolent at accessing the rich resources at our disposal....

Introduces the letters of the alphabet and simple words, including colors, numbers, compound words, and contractions, using Necco Sweethearts candies.