Fucking Apostrophes PDF Download

Author: Simon Griffin
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785781421
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 54

View

Book Description
'At last, a book that tells you exactly where to stick your apostrophe ... funny and useful, the perfect stocking filler.' David Marsh, Guardian Apostrophes are a pain. The rules about how to use them are complicated, and have evolved haphazardly. Originally written as advice by a copywriter for designers - wont to insert and remove apostrophes at will, for visual effect - this is a light-hearted pocket-sized guide to getting the things right. Simon Griffin lets off steam so that we don't have to, showing precisely why 'Rhianna and Jennifer's photos were all over the internet' is quite different to 'Rhianna's and Jennifer's photos' or what words apostrophes are replacing in sentences such as 'He'd like you to buy him some cocaine', or 'They've got it all on camera.' Elegantly produced, this is the perfect gift for any pedant, as well as an indispensable guide in all our moments of grammar-related frustration.

Author: Simon Griffin
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785785575
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 164

View

Book Description
This is not a book about how to be posh. We have some slightly bigger issues to deal with these days. We've all got a million things to do and are constantly connected to millions of other people all doing a million other things, so the faster we get things done the better, right? Wrong. Among all the busyness and confusion it seems we've forgotten a few of the basics in life, like the ability to treat one another with respect, dignity and some fucking good manners. Enter Simon Griffin, author of Fucking Apostrophes. From the entry-level stuff like saying please, thank you and sorry; manspreading on public transport and double-lane queuing at airports, to those that require just a little bit more thought, such as correct urinal protocol in public toilets, making tea rounds in the office and online public displays of affection, Simon imparts rules and advice to living life in a way that makes it just a bit better for everyone. With some liberal use of rude words thrown in to emphasise the point. With chapters on driving, social media, the environment, getting on with your neighbours, and the best manners for a trip to the cinema, this is the perfect gift for a manners enthusiast, or those in need of a gentle (but sweary) nudge in the right direction.

Author: Cecelia Watson
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062853074
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 200

View

Book Description
“Delightful.” —Mary Norris, The New Yorker A page-turning, existential romp through the life and times of the world’s most polarizing punctuation mark The semicolon. Stephen King, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Orwell detest it. Herman Melville, Henry James, and Rebecca Solnit love it. But why? When is it effective? Have we been misusing it? Should we even care? In Semicolon, Cecelia Watson charts the rise and fall of this infamous punctuation mark, which for years was the trendiest one in the world of letters. But in the nineteenth century, as grammar books became all the rage, the rules of how we use language became both stricter and more confusing, with the semicolon a prime victim. Taking us on a breezy journey through a range of examples—from Milton’s manuscripts to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letters from Birmingham Jail” to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep—Watson reveals how traditional grammar rules make us less successful at communicating with each other than we’d think. Even the most die-hard grammar fanatics would be better served by tossing the rule books and learning a better way to engage with language. Through her rollicking biography of the semicolon, Watson writes a guide to grammar that explains why we don’t need guides at all, and refocuses our attention on the deepest, most primary value of language: true communication.

Author: Allie Brosh
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451666187
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 384

View

Book Description
#1 New York Times Bestseller “Funny and smart as hell” (Bill Gates), Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations. FROM THE PUBLISHER: Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices. This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written. Brosh’s debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to. FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative—like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it—but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book: Pictures Words Stories about things that happened to me Stories about things that happened to other people because of me Eight billion dollars* Stories about dogs The secret to eternal happiness* *These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

Author: R L Trask
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141991585
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 112

View

Book Description
The Penguin Guide to Punctuation is indispensable for anyone who needs to get to grips with using punctuation in their written work. Whether you are puzzled by colons and semicolons, unsure of where commas should go or baffled by apostrophes, this jargon-free, succinct guide is for you.

Author: Mary Norris
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393246604
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 245

View

Book Description
New York Times Bestseller Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal "Hilarious…This book charmed my socks off." —Patricia O’Conner, New York Times Book Review Mary Norris has spent more than three decades working in The New Yorker’s renowned copy department, helping to maintain its celebrated high standards. In Between You & Me, she brings her vast experience with grammar and usage, her good cheer and irreverence, and her finely sharpened pencils to help the rest of us in a boisterous language book as full of life as it is of practical advice.

Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307762521
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 349

View

Book Description
25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION • From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road: an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, Blood Meridian traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving. Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest bestselling novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.

Author: LeVar Burton
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0744090253
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 74

View

Book Description
One of the titles in the best-selling A Kids Book About series that introduces important and relevant topics. A clear explanation of what the imagination is and the opportunities that come from the use of it. What is imagination? Most of us think of it as playing pretend or what happens when we're dreaming, but imagination takes us to worlds and galaxies beyond that. Imagination helps us travel between time, space, and reality. It gives us the power to dream up the world in our own vision and encourages us to think of not just what is, but what could be. Imagination is a superpower that unlocks endless possibilities, and all by asking one simple question: What if? This is one conversation that's never too early to start, and this book was written to be an introduction to kids on the topic.

Author: Cecelia Watson
Publisher: Fourth Estate
ISBN: 9780008291563
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 224

View

Book Description
A biography of a much misunderstood punctuation mark and a call to arms in favour of clear expression and against stifling grammar rules. Cecelia Watson used to be obsessive about grammar rules. But then she began teaching. And that was when she realised that strict rules aren't always the best way of teaching people how to make words say what they want them to; that they are even, sometimes, best ignored. One punctuation mark encapsulates this thorny issue more clearly than any other. The semicolon. Hated by Stephen King, Hemingway, Vonnegut and Orwell, and loved by Herman Melville, Henry James and Rebecca Solnit, it is the most divisive punctuation mark in the English language, and many are too scared to go near it. But why? When is it effective? Have we been misusing it? Should we even care? In this warm, funny, enlightening and thoroughly original book, Cecelia Watson takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the surprising history of the semicolon and explores the remarkable power it can wield, if only we would stop being afraid of it. Forget the rules; you're in charge. It's time to make language do what you want it to.

Author: Anahid Nersessian
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1804290351
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 155

View

Book Description
"When I say this book is a love story, I mean it is about things that cannot be gotten over-like this world, and some of the people in it." In 1819, the poet John Keats wrote six poems that would become known as the Great Odes. Some of them-"Ode to a Nightingale," "To Autumn"-are among the most celebrated poems in the English language. Anahid Nersessian here collects and elucidates each of the odes and offers a meditative, personal essay in response to each, revealing why these poems still have so much to say to us, especially in a time of ongoing political crisis. Her Keats is an unflinching antagonist of modern life-of capitalism, of the British Empire, of the destruction of the planet-as well as a passionate idealist for whom every poem is a love poem. The book emerges from Nersessian's lifelong attachment to Keats's poetry; but more, it "is a love story: between me and Keats, and not just Keats." Drawing on experiences from her own life, Nersessian celebrates Keats even as she grieves him and counts her own losses-and Nersessian, like Keats, has a passionate awareness of the reality of human suffering, but also a willingness to explore the possibility that the world, at least, could still be saved. Intimate and speculative, this brilliant mix of the poetic and the personal will find its home among the numerous fans of Keats's enduring work.