Depraved English
by Peter Novobatzky, Ammon Shea
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From "aboiement" to "zooerastia," a guided tour of the lantrified underbelly of the English language This unusual, un-put-downable little volume collects more than three hundred of the English language's most disgusting, offensive, and obscene words--words that have fallen out of common usage 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), a show more boss's "pleonexia" (insane greed), or a buddy's "fumosities" (ill-smelling vapors from a drunken person's belches)? Word lovers, chronic insulters, "berayers," "bescumbers," and "bespewers" need feel like tongue-tied "witlings" no more: Finding the correct, "keck"-inspiring word just got a whole lot easier. show lessTags
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Adorable. Half of this dictionary is probably terms relating to fecal matter, predictably.
I think people who say that English lacks the variety, those words to describe complicated feelings or events, just haven't read this book.
I think people who say that English lacks the variety, those words to describe complicated feelings or events, just haven't read this book.
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3 Works 323 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
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- Paper, Ebook
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