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The Cat's Elbow and Other Secret Languages
Thirteen secret languages and dialects such as Boontling, Flash, Pig Latin, and Kinyume are presented in the form of riddles, jokes and tales which demonstrate how they function
96 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1985
37 people want to read
About the author
Alvin Schwartz
78 books736 followersAlvin^Schwartz
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Alvin Schwartz was the author of more than fifty books dedicated to and dealing with topics such as folklore and word play, many of which were intended for young readers. He is often confused with another Alvin_Schwartz, who wrote Superman and Batman daily comics strips and a novel titled The Blowtop.
For Batman - See: Alvin^^Schwartz https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Alvin Schwartz was the author of more than fifty books dedicated to and dealing with topics such as folklore and word play, many of which were intended for young readers. He is often confused with another Alvin_Schwartz, who wrote Superman and Batman daily comics strips and a novel titled The Blowtop.
For Batman - See: Alvin^^Schwartz https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 26, 2021
This was a cute and fun little collection of "real" fake languages. What I mean by that is that these are not created by Alvin Schwartz, but have been used by others throughout history (think Pig Latin). The book includes everything one would need to learn one of these languages, including little exercises where you can try your luck at decoding messages (answers in the back). While I don't think I'll be using any of these anytime soon, I had a lot of fun trying to figure them all out.
December 22, 2014
We were all quite familiar with Pig Latin, but had never heard of any of the other twelve 'languages' before. The instructions were simple and we loved deciphering the examples. Our oldest loved this book and copied down the rules of her favorites so she can use them with her friends.
We've read many books by Alvin Schwartz and we were surprised by this book It's quite different from his scary story anthologies, and we loved the cunning that went into devising the different codes. While Mr. Schwartz didn't actually make up any of these languages himself, he certainly did a great job in bringing them to light. We really enjoyed reading this book together.
Jood gob. (in Medical Greek)
doog boj. (in Kinyume)
geggoeggod jeggob. (in Eggo-Peggo)
gugoodud jugobub. (in King Tut)
gogoodod jojobob. (in The Cat's Elbow)
We've read many books by Alvin Schwartz and we were surprised by this book It's quite different from his scary story anthologies, and we loved the cunning that went into devising the different codes. While Mr. Schwartz didn't actually make up any of these languages himself, he certainly did a great job in bringing them to light. We really enjoyed reading this book together.
Jood gob. (in Medical Greek)
doog boj. (in Kinyume)
geggoeggod jeggob. (in Eggo-Peggo)
gugoodud jugobub. (in King Tut)
gogoodod jojobob. (in The Cat's Elbow)
May 31, 2010
Much fun to be had teaching and learning Pig Latin and other languages with kids. Owknay atwhay Iay eanmay?
October 16, 2013
A book of spoken ciphers
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews