Depraved and Insulting English
by Peter Novobatzky, Ammon Shea
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Description
Originally published as two distinct collections, Depraved and Insulting English brings to light the language's most offensive and obscene words--words that have fallen out of today's lexicon but will no doubt delight, amuse, and in some cases prove surprisingly useful. Who hasn't searched for the right word to describe a colleague's maschalephidrosis (runaway armpit perspiration) or a boss's pleonexia (insane greed)? And what better way is there to insult the scombroid landlord (resembling show more a mackerel) or that tumbrel of a brother-in-law (a person who is drunk to the point of vomiting) than by calling him by his rightful name? A compact compendium of ingenious words for anyone who's been tongue-tied, flabbergasted, or dumbfounded, Depraved and Insulting English supplies the appropriate vocabulary for any occasion. Word lovers, chronic insulters, berayers, bescumbers, and bespewers need fear no more--finding the correct word to wow your friends or silence your enemies just got a whole lot easier. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Depraved and Insulting England. Haven't read it, flipped through it. It's a dictionary, for God's sake! Which is what I expected, And it is humorous. The authors claim the words are all legitimate words. Use them as you wish.
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Author Information
3 Works 324 Members
5 Works 1,437 Members
Ammon Shea is the author of Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, along with Depraved English, Insulting English, and The Phone Book. A dictionary collector, he has worked as a consulting editor of American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. He has also contributed to the "On Language" column in Sunday's New York Times and has show more reviewed language books for the New York Times Book Review. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. show less
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Depraved and Insulting English
- Dedication
- For our parents
- First words
- Amidst the grand panoply that is the English language, largest on this Earth, tongue of Shakespeare, Byron, and Melville, there are a puzzling number of words that mean "to spray with shit."
- Blurbers
- McCourt, Frank; Winchester, Simon
- Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genres
- Reference, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 427.09 — Language English & Old English languages Historical and geographic variations, modern nongeographic variations of English standard subdivisions, and by time period [formerly: Modern slang]
- LCC
- PE3721 .N677 — Language and Literature English language English Slang. Argot, etc.
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 218
- Popularity
- 148,397
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.03)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 1
- ASINs
- 1
