Tales from the Word Guy is a collection of essays adapted from the author’s segments on CBC Radio One’s North by Northwest. Jonathan Berkowitz takes the reader on a delightful journey through the history, idiosyncrasies, and sheer pleasures of the English language.He covers how English evolved and expanded over the centuries. And he reminds us of long-forgotten aspects of how to use the language properly. You will chuckle at how it is used improperly, often with amusing results.

Why do word puzzles fascinate us? How do they help develop problem-solving skills? How do they teach us about geography, literature, sports, and popular culture? How are they an international language?Jonathan Berkowitz offers a brief history of wordplay, with insights into puzzles and the brain. He offers tips on how to solve puzzles and explains the educational value of puzzles. Challenges in the form of rebuses, anagrams, codes and cryptograms, crosswords, and wordplay with numb...

The natural approach presented in this handbook seeks to help sufferers of asthma to breathe more easily. While drugs have proved lifesaving for many people, the long-term answer for asthma sufferers is in learning how to embrace a healthy lifestyle. Jonathan Berkowitz shows how dietary changes, exercise, environmental controls, supplements and herbs can alleviate your symptoms safely and effectively, without the side effects of conventional drugs. Berkowitz is an asthmatic as well as a ph...

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a mysterious illness in which the large intestine fails to function normally. Its causes are not fully understood and treatments have often been ineffective. Now, Jonathan M. Berkowitz uses cutting-edge research to provide a compelling and effective approach to treat this complex illness. Using the best of conventional and natural therapies, Dr. Berkowitz shows how an individualised programme is the best way to heal IBS.

Covering a wide range of popular alternative medicine and health issues, User's Guides are written by leading experts and science writers and are designed to answer the consumer's basic questions about disease, conventional and alternative therapies, and individual dietary supplements.

Countless people around the world suffer from allergies and allergy-like symptoms. Many of these symptoms can be reduced through dietary change and nutritional supplements. This User's Guide to Natural Allergy Relief explains allergies in simple terms, as well as the steps you can take to ease your symptoms.

In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century ('roe', in case you are wondering). Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient words ('loaf') to cutting edge ('twittersphere') and spanning the indispen...

Fifteen never-before-collected essays by "one of America's most daring and talented writers" all published in book form for the first time ( Los Angeles Times Book Review).Never has Wallace's seemingly endless curiosity been more evident than in this compilation of work spanning nearly 20 years of writing. Here, Wallace turns his critical eye with equal enthusiasm toward Roger Federer and Jorge Luis Borges; Terminator 2 and The Best of the Pros...

Knowing every rule and writing with perfect correctness will take your students only so far in their quest for excellence. For, beyond grammar, there's rhetoric -- language use that separates craftspersons from scribblers. Readers, too, must be able to discuss how a writer presents a case or constructs an argument. The higher scores on nearly all state assessments and college entrance exam rubrics demand knowledge of rhetorical devices and their effects. When your students are ready to g...

A bestselling linguist takes us on a lively tour of how the English language is evolving before our eyes -- and why we should embrace this transformation and not fight itLanguage is always changing -- but we tend not to like it. We understand that new words must be created for new things, but the way English is spoken today rubs many of us the wrong way. Whether it’s the use of literally to mean “figuratively” rather than “by the letter,” or the way young ...

Amuse your mind and build your brain power with the verbal gymnastics found in these seventy-five word workouts from the acclaimed puzzle creator.Chronicle Books is pleased to continue the Puzzlemaster Deck line with this new deck from acclaimed NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz, crossword puzzle editor for the New York Times. Packed with seventy-five verbal brainteasers each, this deck will challenge all who enjoy wordplay. None of the puzzles require pen or pa...

I don't know how else to tell you this...everything you know about English is wrong."If you love language and the unvarnished truth, you'll love Everything You Know About English Is Wrong. You'll have fun because his lively, comedic, skeptical voice will speak to you from the pages of his word-bethumped book."-Richard Lederer, author of Anguished English, Get Thee to a Punnery, and Word WizardNow that you know, it's time to, well, bite the mother tongue. William Broh...