Crazy English
by Richard Lederer
List Price:
Our Price: $2.65
You Save: $11.35 (81%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.50 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Richard LedererEdition: Paperback
Published: 1998-06-01
ISBN: 0671023233
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Pocket
Book Reviews of Crazy English
Book Review: Very Entertaining and Interesting
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is an easy and fun read. Great for those who are interested in the oddities of the English language. Recommended for fans of George Carlin, the comedian. Also recommended for teachers and professors who are looking for interesting and entertaining examples to use in class.
Summary of Crazy English
One of the most unforgettable moments of my youth was learning the word pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. I was in third grade. So what if Richard Lederer has come up with a chemical compound that consists of 1,913 letters? Owning a word like pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is empowering at any age. If you have ever been completely wowed by the power you can have over language, or its power over you, Richard Lederer is your patron saint. His oft-reprinted introduction to Crazy English, which was originally published in 1989, claims that English is "the most loopy and wiggy of all tongues." And then he demonstrates: "In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? ... Why do they call them apartments when they're all together?" And so on. Lederer's pace is frenetic. He alights on oxymorons ("pretty ugly," "computer jock"), redundancies, confusing words (are you sure you know the meaning of enormity?), phobias, contronyms, heteronyms, retroactive terms (acoustic guitar, rotary phone), and a host of other linguistic delights.Though English may be one of the crazier languages--Lederer claims that about 80 percent of our words are not spelled phonetically--they are all, he says, a little crazy. "That's because language is invented ... by boys and girls and men and women, not computers. As such, language reflects the creative and fearful asymmetry of the human race, which, of course, isn't really a race at all." --Jane Steinberg
Humor Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Longest Word
Love's Labor's Lost (The Pelican Shakespeare)by William Shakespeare
Penguin Classics; Published: 2000-06-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.45
Price in other shops:
English Grammar for Dummiesby Geraldine Woods
For Dummies; Published: 2001-07-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.68
Price in other shops:
Crazy Englishby Richard Lederer
Pocket; Published: 1998-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.88
Price in other shops:
Pocket Medicine: The Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of Internal Medicine (Pocket Notebook Series)by Marc S Sabatine
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Published: 2007-08-01; Ring-bound; Book
Best price: $31.95
Price in other shops:
Oxford Dictionary of English (Dictionary)Oxford University Press; Published: 2005-08-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $45.44
Price in other shops:
New Zealand (Country Guide)by Carolyn Bain
Lonely Planet; Published: 2006-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops:
Aristophanes: Frogs. Assemblywomen. Wealth. (Loeb Classical Library No. 180)by Aristophanes
Loeb Classical Library; Published: 2002-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.90
Price in other shops:
General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry, An Integrated Approachby Kenneth W. Raymond
Wiley; Published: 2005-08-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $20.00
The Blah Story, Volume 10by Nigel Tomm
BookSurge Publishing; Published: 2008-03-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $39.99
The Blah Story, Volume 19by Nigel Tomm
CreateSpace; Published: 2008-06-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $39.99
Similar Books and other products
Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon the English Languageby Richard Lederer
Gibbs Smith, Publisher; Published: 2006-04-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.70
Price in other shops:
Pun and Games: Jokes, Riddles, Daffynitions, Tairy Fales, Rhymes, and More Word Play for Kidsby Richard Lederer
Chicago Review Press; Published: 1996-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.42
Price in other shops:
Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuationby Richard Lederer, John Shore
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2007-07-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.19
Price in other shops:
Word Wizard: Super Bloopers, Rich Reflections, and Other Acts of Word Magicby Richard Lederer
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2006-03-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.80
Price in other shops:
The Bride of Anguished English: A Bonanza of Bloopers, Blunders, Botches, and Boo-Boosby Richard Lederer
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2002-07-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops:
Sleeping Dogs Don't Lay: Practical Advice for the Grammatically Challengedby Richard Lederer, Richard Dowis
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2001-04-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.83
Price in other shops:
Fractured Englishby Richard Lederer
Pocket Books; Published: 1996-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.48
Price in other shops:
More Anguished English: an Expose of Embarrassing Excruciating, and Egregious Errors in Englishby Richard Lederer
Dell; Published: 1994-09-04; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.45
Price in other shops:
Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon Our Languageby Richard Lederer
Dell; Published: 1989-08-05; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.86
Price in other shops:
The Play of Wordsby Richard Lederer
Pocket; Published: 1991-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.43
Price in other shops: