BRYSON’S DICTIONARY OF TROUBLESOME WORDS: A WRITER’S GUIDE TO GETTING IT RIGHT
Book ID/图书代码： 06880004B07496
English Summary/英文概要： One of the English language’s most skilled and beloved writers guides us all toward precise, mistake-free usage.
As usual Bill Bryson says it best: “English is a dazzlingly idiosyncratic tongue, full of quirks and irregularities that often seem willfully at odds with logic and common sense. This is a language where ‘cleave’ can mean to cut in half or to hold two halves together; where the simple word ‘set’ has 126 different meanings as a verb, 58 as a noun, and 10 as a participial adjective; where if you can run fast you are moving swiftly, but if you are stuck fast you are not moving at all; [and] where ‘colonel,’ ‘freight,’ ‘once,’ and ‘ache’ are strikingly at odds with their spellings.” As a copy editor for the London Times in the early 1980s, Bill Bryson felt keenly the lack of an easy-to-consult, authoritative guide to avoiding the traps and snares in English, and so he brashly suggested to a publisher that he should write one. Surprisingly, the proposition was accepted, and for “a sum of money carefully gauged not to cause embarrassment or feelings of overworth,” he proceeded to write that book–his first, inaugurating his stellar career.
Now, a decade and a half later, revised, updated, and thoroughly (but not overly) Americanized, it has become Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words, more than ever an essential guide to the wonderfully disordered thing that is the English language. With some one thousand entries, from “a, an” to “zoom,” that feature real-world examples of questionable usage from an international array of publications, and with a helpful glossary and guide to pronunciation, this precise, prescriptive, and–because it is written by Bill Bryson–often witty book belongs on the desk of every person who cares enough about the language not to maul or misuse or distort it.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 英语语言中最受人爱戴的写作高手之一BILL BRYSON 指引我们如何准确无误地使用语言。 BILL BRYSON还是一如既往，说的很绝：“英语是一个有独特属性的语言，充满了奇怪巧合和不规则性，看起来就像是故意要与逻辑和常识唱反调似的。在英语里，“劈”既可以是指一切为二的意思，又有把两样东西粘合在一起的意思；一个简简单单的“SET”， 作动词时，就有126种不同的意思，而作名词用时，又有58个意思，作为分词形容词是，则又有10种意思了；英语里，如果说你跑地快，说明你移动的迅速，但是快这个次在与粘用在一起时，这时的快就不是原来那个意思了；名词colonel、 freight和once则与它们的拼写形成鲜明的对比”。曾在80年代初期做过伦敦《泰姆士报》审稿员的BILL BRYSON，强烈地感到没有一本查询方便且权威的、可以帮助我们避免陷入英语中的种种陷阱和圈套大全的紧迫，所以他仓促间向一位出版商提议，他准备写这样一本书。但令人吃惊的是，他的提议被接受了，“为了那笔精心核算过的不至于低地让他太难堪，当然也不会高地让他有物超所值的感觉的稿费”， BILL开始执笔写这本书了-----这也是他的第一本书，开启了他的星光生涯。
15年过去了，那本书经过了修订、更新、也完全美语话了（但并没很过分），现在变成了这本《BRYSON的麻烦字词典》，更是使用英语-------这一混乱地让人叫绝的语言的必不可缺的手册了。
书中收入了1000个左右的词条，从A 开始到ZOOM，它是以世界各地出版物中可疑的语言用法的实际样例的分析为主。 这本精确 、说明性强且不乏睿智的书，后附了术语表------很有用处，此外还有标点符号指南，所以，任何在乎英语且不愿糟蹋、滥用或歪曲它的人都应该在书桌上放一本这样的书。
Awards/获奖情况：Combines the virtues of a first class work of reference with the pleasure of a good read (The Times)
About the Author/作者介绍： BILL BRYSON写过多篇旅行文学以及语言类图书。除了畅销小说《林中漫步》、《请问这个是美国吗？》、《日灼的乡村》，他还写过《母语》、《失落的大洲》、《小岛上的点滴》、《欧洲在发酵》 。现居新罕布什尔州的汉诺威。Bill Bryson is the author of numerous works of travel literature as well as books on language. In addition to his bestselling books for Broadway, including A Walk in the Woods, I’m a Stranger Here Myself, and In a Sunburned Country, he is the author of Mother Tongue, The Lost Continent, Notes from a Small Island, and Neither Here nor There. He lives in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Format:TRADE PAPERBACK
Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE(到期可授)
Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE(到期可授)
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