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Etymology

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Course in General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure

An Introduction to Language by Victoria A. Fromkin

Best Books about Linguistics

246 books — 221 voters

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary by Merriam-Webster

The Oxford English Dictionary by John Andrew Simpson

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary by A.S. Hornby

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.

Dictionaries

386 books — 54 voters

Just For You #2 by Mrs Maryam Tabibzadeh

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

176 books — 47 voters

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Books to Celebrate Black History Month (and Read All Year-Round)

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“ We open our mouths and out flow words whose ancestries we do not even know. We are walking lexicons. In a single sentence of idle chatter we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse; we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate peoples of whom we have never heard. More than that, we speak volumes – our language is the language of everything we have read. Shakespeare and the Authorised Version surface in supermarkets, on buses, chatter on radio and television. I find this miraculous. I n ...more ”
― Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger

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“ Do you know where 'policeman' comes from, sir? ... 'Polis' used to mean 'city', said Carrot. That's what policeman means: 'a man for the city'. Not many people knew that. The word 'polite' comes from 'polis', too. It used to mean the proper behaviour from someone living in a city. ...more ”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

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