The foremost single volume authority on the English language, the Oxford Dictionary of English is at the forefront of language research, focusing on English as it is used today. It is informed by the most up-to-date evidence from the largest language research programme in the world, including the two-billion-word Oxford English Corpus. This new edition includes thousands of brand-new words and senses, as well as up-to-date encyclopedic information, and extensive appendices covering topics such as countries, heads of state, and chemical elements. New features include Word Trends which showcase language research based on the Oxford English Corpus and illuminate the extraordinary stories behind fast-changing words of everyday English.

Write It Real reduces the writing process to its essential core, providing prose writers with pragmatic guides directed solely to improving their words where it matters the most, on the page. This book covers every aspect governing the inside process of producing compelling prose. In doing so, it avoids the abstract and "philosophical" theories of so many writing guides, the nonsense that loses the reader in the layered, labyrinthine maze of grammar and technical excess. Valenti’s masterful book focuses instead on the time-tested, practical strategies that produce tangible—and sometimes instant—results. Write It Real will help writers of all abilities, from developing to the selling pro, refine their work into sparkling clarity, and to do it with renewed confidence that comes from fully understanding how writing works from the inside of creativity out to the reader. This guidebook combines the best of a handbook and a "how to" with insights and strategies refined over decades of the author’s prolific career as a journalist, writer, teacher, and speaker. A passionate take on and an illuminating look at a skill both mysterious and accessible, Write It Real’s 11 chapters take writers through the overlooked (because it’s obvious) and the obscure (because it’s overlooked). As a prose prescription, this "Rx" is nothing less than the 21st century’s answer to Strunk and White’s classic, The Elements of Style.

In the past few decades, sustained and overwhelming research attention has been given to EAL (English as an Additional Language) scholars’ English writing and publishing. While this line of research has shed important light on the scene of global knowledge production and dissemination, it tends to overlook the less Anglicized and more locally bound disciplines located at the academic periphery. This book aimed to fill the gap by examining the academic enculturation experiences of Chinese archaeologists through the lens of their disciplinary writing. Consisting of a situated genre analysis and a multi-case study, the textographic study disclosed the immense complexity of archaeologists’ texts, practices and identities. Important implications were generated for writing researchers and teachers as well as archaeologists and other HSS (the humanities and social sciences) scholars. This book would make a valuable reading for researchers and students of disciplinary/academic writing, second language writing and literacy studies.

This second edition of the award-winning Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary offers even more entries for anyone working with Yiddish on a personal or professional level. Based on the work of the late Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter, a noted linguist and Executive Director of the League for Yiddish, the dictionary emphasizes Yiddish as a living language that is spoken in many places around the world. Featuring 85,000 entries, this second edition has been thoroughly revised and expanded with approximately 1000 new words and phrases and is sure to become a critical resource for Yiddish scholars and speakers for years to come.

Essential Actions for Academic Writers is a writing textbook for all novice academic students, undergraduate or graduate, to help them understand how to write effectively throughout their academic and professional careers. While these novice writers may use English as a second or additional language, this book is also intended for students who have done little writing in their prior education or who are not yet confident in their academic writing. Essential Actions combines genre research, proven pedagogical practices, and short readings to help students develop their rhetorical flexibility by exploring and practicing the key actions that will appear in academic assignments, such as explaining, summarizing, synthesizing, and arguing.  Part I introduces students to rhetorical situation, genre, register, source use, and a framework for understanding how to approach any new writing task. The genre approach recognizes that all writing responds to a context that includes the writer’s identity, the reader’s expectations, the purpose of the text, and the conventions that shape it. Part II explores each essential action and provides examples of the genres and language that support it. Part III leads students in combining the actions in different genres and contexts, culminating in the project of writing a personal statement for a university or scholarship application. 

Hong Kong cinema began attracting international attention in the 1980s. By the early 1990s, Hong Kong had become "Hollywood East" as its film industry rose to first in the world in per capita production, was ranked second to the United States in the number of films it exported, and stood third in the world in the number of films produced per year behind the United States and India. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Hong Kong Cinema contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 600 cross-referenced entries on directors, producers, writers, actors, films, film companies, genres, and terminology. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Hong Kong cinema.

You will never be lost for words in your travels around Germany and German-speaking countries again! Your ideal pocket-sized travel companion and the accompanying free ebook will ensure that you can say what you need in German with ease and confidence. Reliable, portable and easy-to-use, this phrasebook is an indispensable travel companion as you deal with the situations that crop up every day on holiday; from finding a chic hotel, or hiring a car to explore the countryside, to choosing a local delicacy from the menu, and, of course, setting up your wifi. With helpful travel information and cultural tips, plus a 3000-word dictionary, make sure you don’t go anywhere without this little book – an essential guide to speaking and understanding German when travelling in Germany and German-speaking countries. Access your free ebook at collins.co.uk/ebooks

In the first half of the eighteenth century, rival dynasties of Naqshbandi Sufi shaykhs vied for influence in the Tarim Basin, part of present-day Xinjiang. In the 1750s, the collapse of the Junghar Mongol state gave one branch of this family an opportunity to assert their independence in the oasis cities of Kashgar and Yarkand. Others sided with the armies of the Qing dynasty, which were massing on the frontiers to invade. The ensuing conflict saw the region incorporated into the expanding Qing imperium. Three decades afterward, Muḥammad Ṣadiq Kashghari was commissioned to write an account of these Naqshbandi Sufis and their downfall. Blending the genres of collective biography and historical epic, mixing prose and verse, Kashghari’s text vividly depicts religious and political conflicts on the eve of the Qing conquest. It became the most popular and influential Chaghatay-language work to grapple with this divisive period. This volume presents the complete, long recension of In Remembrance of the Saints, translated for the first time into any Western language and extensively annotated with reference to both Islamic and Qing sources. The introduction situates the work in the Inner Asian tradition of Sufi biography and discusses the political factors shaping historical memory in Qianlong-era Xinjiang. Providing a rare local perspective on China’s expansion into Muslim borderlands, this translation sheds light on Xinjiang’s political and religious traditions and makes a foundational work of Inner Asian literature available to students and scholars.

Olá! From ordering vinho verde in the Douro Valley to making new friends in Lisbon, it helps to speak some of the native tongue in Portugal. Rick Steves offers well-tested Portuguese words and phrases that come in handy in a variety of situations. Inside you'll find: Key phrases for use in everyday circumstances, complete with phonetic spellingAn English-Portuguese and Portuguese-English dictionaryTips for small talk and local lingo with Rick's signature sense of humorA tear-out cheat sheet for continued language practice as you relax on the beach (no internet connection required!) Informative, concise, and practical, Rick Steves Portuguese Phrase Book & Dictionary is an essential item for any traveler's pocket.

The "Dictionary of Louisiana French (DLF)" provides the richest inventory of French vocabulary in Louisiana and reflects precisely the speech of the period from 1930 to the present. This dictionary describes the current usage of French-speaking peoples in the five broad regions of South Louisiana: the coastal marshes, the banks of the Mississippi River, the central area, the north, and the western prairie. Data were collected during interviews from at least five persons in each of twenty-four areas in these regions. In addition to the data collected from fieldwork, the dictionary contains material compiled from existing lexical inventories, from texts published after 1930, and from archival recordings.

The new authoritative resource, the "DLF" not only contains the largest number of words and expressions but also provides the most complete information available for each entry. Entries include the word in the conventional French spelling, the pronunciation (including attested variants), the part of speech classification, the English equivalent, and the word's use in common phrases. The "DLF" features a wealth of illustrative examples derived from fieldwork and textual sources and identification of the parish where the entry was collected or the source from which it was compiled. An English-to-Louisiana French index enables readers to find out how particular notions would be expressed in "la Louisiane."

From internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him.

On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black—black clothes, black mask—rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.

What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide.

Knife is Rushdie at the peak of his powers, writing with urgency, with gravity, with unflinching honesty. It is also a deeply moving reminder of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.

Totkv Mocvse/New Fire presents the work of Earnest Gouge, an important early Creek (Muskogee) author, and makes available for the first time-in Creel and English - the myths and legends of a major American Indian tribe.In 1915, Earnest Gouge was encouraged by ethnographer John Reed Swanton to record Creek legends and myths. Gouge's manuscript lay in the National Anthropological Archives for eighty-five years until two Creek-speaking sisters, Margaret McKane Mauldin and Juanita McGirt, and linguist Jack B. Martin, began translating and editing the document. In Totkv Mocvse/New Fire, Gouge's stories appear in parallel format, with the Creek text alongside the English translation. The stories cover many themes, from the humorous allegories of Rabbit, Wolf, and other personified animals, to hunting stories designed to frighten a nighttime audience in the woods. An insightful foreword by Craig Womack and Jack Martin's introduction frame the stories within Creek literature and history. Martin and Mauldin also provide brief introductions to each story, highlighting key elements of Creek culture.

If you want to learn how to shoot a basketball, you begin by carefully observing someone who knows how to shoot a basketball. If you want to be a writer, you begin by carefully observing the work of accomplished writers. Recognising the importance that modeling plays in the learning process, high school English teacher Kelly Gallagher shares how he gets his students to stand next to and pay close attention to model writers, and how doing so elevates his students' writing abilities. Write Like This is built around a central premise: if students are to grow as writers, they need to read good writing, they need to study good writing, and, most important, they need to emulate good writers. In Write Like This, Kelly emphasises real-world writing purposes, the kind of writing he wants his students to be doing twenty years from now. Each chapter focuses on a specific discourse: express and reflect, inform and explain, evaluate and judge, inquire and explore, analyse and interpret, and take a stand/propose a solution. In teaching these lessons, Kelly provides mentor texts (professional samples as well as models he has written in front of his students), student writing samples, and numerous assignments and strategies proven to elevate student writing. By helping teachers bring effective modeling practices into their classrooms, Write Like This enables students to become better adolescent writers. More important, the practices found in this book will help our students develop the writing skills they will need to become adult writers in the real world.

There are very serious environmental problems facing the planet. Biodiversity loss has reached unprecedented levels. Climate change is progressing so rapidly that within this century we are likely to see substantial sea level rise. There has been dramatic loss of tropical rainforests. Plastic pollution is killing wildlife and polluting our oceans. Various movements old and new are addressing these green issues. Civil society activism has taken on new strategies with the emergence of new technologies and global networks of green activists have formed. A new generation of green activists are emerging and boldly criticizing the status quo. At the same time, in some parts of the world, green movements that looked like they were beginning to gain a political foothold or were even doing quite well are in retreat. The reasons are complex. Some suffer from lack of funding and hostile political and legal environments. Others are being attacked by populist politicians who see green activism as a threat. The second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Green Movement contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced on green movements, green politics, green trends, and major environmental agreements and events. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the green movement.

Y'all best be fixin' to be a grinnin' like a possum eatin' a sweet tater. Southerners sure do have a way with words! Who needs simple and direct when you can color every conversation with Southern style. There seems to be a Southern saying for every occasion. Some are inspiring and uplifting while others have that biting tongue-in-cheek humor Southerners adore, and Bless Your Heart and Mind Your Mama brings together the best phrasin' south of the Mason Dixon. So sit back on yer bohunkus and dig into a collection of Southernisms that'll make you slap a knee and call your mama.

Daoism is the oldest indigenous philosophic-spiritual tradition of China and one of the most ancient of the world’s spiritual structures. The name “Daoism� comes from the term dao that is often used for a “way� or a “road� through the field or woods to one’s village. It is also used of the “way� to do something, such as the way a master craftsman carves a candlestick, makes a bell, or even butchers an ox. But dao is also used as a nominative in the history of Daoism. It is used for the energizing process that permeates and animates all of reality and moves it along simply as “the Dao.� However, both text and practice in this tradition insist that dao itself cannot be described in words. Dao is not God in the sense of Western philosophy or religion. Daoism has no supreme being, even if there is an extensive grammar about numinal self-conscious entities and powers for which the Chinese use the word “spirit� (shen). For example, the highest numinal powers of Daoism are variously called Taishang Laojun (the deified Laozi), the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning (Yuanshi tianzun), the Jade Emperor (Yuhuang Shangdi) or the Perfected Warrior (Zhenwu). But these are expressions of dao in specific shen, they are not identical with the Dao, except in the most unique case when Laozi, the putative founder of Daoism and author of its major work, Daodejing, is said to be one with the Dao. Historical Dictionary of Daoism contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on related to the Chinese belief and practice worldview known as Daoism including dozens of Daoist terms, names, and practices. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Daoism.

Join childhood friends Mark and Ted as they lead you on a creative adventure through this special coloring book! "After many years of teaching writing, these amazing Totally Weird Activity books will captivate even the most reluctant student! Filled with a wide variety of topics and interests to get a story started, the books will ignite a passion for the craft." —Laura Baker, elementary school teacher and winner of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching Each page includes dynamic black-and-white illustrations, plus a cool interactive element to spark the imagination. Complete half-finished drawings, create your own story from the writing prompts, solve word searches, and fill in the blanks with ideas as you color through this fun, wacky journey. There's something in here for everyone! Part of the Totally Weird Activity Book series, Creative Coloring and Far-Out Fun is perfect for young artists, illustrators, coloring book fans, writers, and puzzlers who like to imagine and create things.

Historical Dictionary of Spanish Cinema covers Spanish cinema, its treasures its constant attempts to break through internationally, reaching out towards universal themes and conventions, and the specific obstacles and opportunities that have shaped the careers of filmmakers and stars. This book contains a chronology, an introduction, an appendix and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 200 cross-referenced entries on titles, movements, filmmakers and performers, and genres (such as homosexuality, nuevo cine español or horror). This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Spanish cinema.