The chances are that at some time in your life the spotlight will be turned on you, while everyone waits expectantly for words of wit and wisdom to pour from your lips. Whether it's a formal speech or just a funny story to amuse your friends, this book will provide everything you need to keep your audiences entertained. So leave behind incoherent mumblings and enter the world of zany stories, comic quotations, toasts, puns and lot more.

When Ernest Gellner was his early thirties, he took it upon himself to challenge the prevailing philosophical orthodoxy of the day, Linguistic Philosophy. Finding a powerful ally in Bertrand Russell, who provided the foreword for this book, Gellner embarked on the project that was to put him on the intellectual map. Words and Things was the first determined attempt to state the premises and operational rules of the movement. The basic charge was that Linguistic Philosophy was an aberrant, trivializing perversion of good philosophical practice, substituting, in place of honest theorizing and argument, pedantic scrutiny of intrinsically uninteresting detail. When this now-famous critique originally appeared in 1959, it created a scandal, causing a flurry of correspondence in the Times. Words and Things remains the most devastating attack on a conventional wisdom in philosophy to this day.

Have you ever wondered what phrases such as 'square meal', 'load of old codswallop', 'egg on your face' or 'in the limelight' mean? Where do they come from? Have you ever taken a moment to wonder what we say actually means? The origins of hundreds of common phrases are explained in this irreverent journey through the most fascinating and richest regions of the English language. In a book that takes you all over the world, from nautical origins to food and drink terms, once you have learnt one phrase, you will be eager to learn them all! From the drop of a hat to the bitter end - you'll be surprised and intrigued and you'll never speak English in the same way again. 作者简介： Albert Jack is a writer and researcher in pop culture whose favourite phrase is 'doolally'. He is 39 years old and has two children.

Prover, sayings, and other expressions are commonly used every day !They're words that are so familiar, however, that their real meanings have been either lost or confused over the years. For instance, who hasn't wished to be "as free ass a bird"?However, our feathered friends are not carefree.In fact, most birds are pretty anxious creatures with a lot of responsibility. When someone says, "One bad apple spoils the barrdl," it means that no mater how good you are, if someone bad enters your group, it's going to be spoiled. While this may not hold true for all people, it does for apples. When an apple starts to rot ,it produces a chemical called ethylene that cfauses the apple to decay. The other apples in the barrdl detect this chemical reaction and begin to produce their own ethylene, causing all the apples to spoil. "All that glitters is not gold."Anyone who has even seen pyrite, or fool's gold, knows this to be true. Has it ever really rained "cats and dogs"?In 1984,during a rainstorm, part of

52,000 words, phrases and meanings.

This is a helpful guide to the essentials students need in the first stages of learning English.

37,000 words, phrases, and meanings Essential information on basic English vocabulary in a popular, slim, pocket-sized book that is easy to carry. Now updated with new words that have entered the language.

This dictionary is written specifically for intermediate learners and their needs, with a focus on building vocabulary through topics, and on boosting accuracy and confidence.

30 million presentations will be given today. Millions will fail. Millions more will be received with yawns. A rare few will establish the most profound connection, in which presenter and audience understand each other perfectly ... discover common ground ... and, together, decide to act!Presenting to Win: Persuade Your Audience Every Time is about getting those "A-ha!" moments, and the extraordinary success that follows from them. Jerry Weissman shows you how to transform your presentations from dry recitals of facts into compelling stories with a laser-sharp focus on what matters most: what's in it for the audience.These techniques have proven themselves with billions of dollars on the line. Thousands of Weissman's elite clients have already mastered them. Now it's your turn! * Techniques proven in hundreds of IPO road shows How you can convince even the world's toughest audiences * What you must do to tell your story Focus before flow: Identifying your real goals and message * The powe

501 Grammar and Writing Questions helps students build writing skills and master the rules of grammar and writing to communicate ideas clearly and effectively. This book teaches through questions about the mechanics of capitalization and punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, paragraph development, and essay questions. Utilizing a mix of multiple choice and essay questions, just like what students see on many placement and state assessment tests, this book is a helpful aid for preparing for tests of many kinds. The questions come along with examples of essays that range from poor to superior and explanations that provide a clear understanding of how to write the best essay.

Truly a joy to use. It has to be the most user-friendly, information-sensitive dictionary available for the upper-intermediate to advanced English learner.' - David Shaffer, Vol. 3, No 1, Korea TESOL Journal 'The only dictionary a typical language student would ever need. Bang up-to-date and bursting with fun new expressions.' - The TEFL Farm '... the focus is more than ever on helping the learner.' - The International House Journal 'The best dictionary I have ever read in my life.' - Customer review, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The Tornado is back, and a 'Dream Team' of the world's bestdetectives comes to Paris to find this famous thief. The head ofthe French Police chooses Inspector Jacques Clouseau to help. TheDream Team thinks C[ouseau is an idiot. Can he find the PinkPanther diamond and be France's favourite detective once again?

This Gold Stars workbook has been specially created to help develop early literacy skills. The authors, Betty Root and Monica Hughes, are literacy experts in the field of primary education. ENGLISH FOR AGES 5-6 includes helpful guidelines for parents, plus parent notes for the activities.The clearly designed pages and brightly coloured pictures make [earning both easy and fun.

Adeline Yen Mah's childhood in China during the civil war was a time of fear, isolation and humiliation. The cause of this was not political upheaval but systematic emotional and physical abuse by her step mother and siblings, and rejection by her father. Falling Leaves is the story of a 'Fifth Younger Daughter' and her determination to survive the pain of a lonely childhood。

Not so long ago, writes Jeremy Paxman, the English were "polite, unexcitable, reserved, and had hot-water bottles instead of a sex-life". Today the end of empire has killed off the Bulldog Breed - "fearless and philistine, safe in taxis and invaluable in shipwrecks" - and transformed the great public schools. Princess Diana was mourned with the effusive emotionalism of an Italian saint. Leader-writers in "The Times" even praise the sexual skills of English lovers ...So what are the defining features of "Englishness"? How can a country of football hooligans have such an astonishingly low murder rate? Does the nation's sense of itself extend to millions of black, Asian and other immigrant Britons? Is it grounded in arrogant, nostalgic fantasy or can it form the basis for building a realistic future within Europe? To answer these crucial questions, Paxman looks for clues in the English language, literature, luke-warm religion and "curiously passionless devotion" to cricket. He explores attitudes to Catholics, th