Balderdash & Piffle

by Alex Games

Overview

Discover the fascinating stories behind the words and phrases we use every day. English is now the worlds most popular second language, understood by over 700 million people across the globe. Its use is amazingly broad: not only is it the language of Chaucer and Shakespeare, but also of hip-hop, international business and the internet (over 80% of home pages are in English). So where exactly do English words come from? They come from everywhere. English is a vast, rambling conglomeration of words and phrases from a huge variety of times and places, and every word has its own intriguing history. Balderdash&Piffle is a guidebook an entertaining look at what falls out of the chaotic family tree of English words when you uproot it and give it a damn good shake. Shaking the tree is writer, humourist and word-sleuth Alex Games. If youve ever wondered who first used cuppa in print, what language gave us shampoo, when we started saying window, where minging comes from, what Shakespeare had to say about geeks and why berk is really, really rude, youll find it all (and much more) inside. Youll also have the chance to do your own word-sleuthing, through the BBC Wordhunt appeal. Who knows if you have written evidence of a bouncy castle from before 1986, you could even re-write history

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781446415054
Publisher:	Ebury Publishing
Publication date:	12/15/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Alex Games wrote the original Balderdash&Piffle which became an instant bestseller on publication in January 2006. He has written for most of the slightly posher newspapers, and in a brief stint as a gadget columnist he was responsible for reviewing some of the most inexpensive items ever to appear in the Financial Times. As well as writing comedy for BBC Radio 1 and 4, Alex has written biographies of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and Alan Bennett.

Victoria Coren is a well-known freelance journalist. She writes weekly columns in the Guardian and the Observer, and she has written two books, Love 16 and Once More With Feeling. She presents Balderdash&Piffle and several televised poker series. Victoria is a keen amateur word-hunter and an avid completer of crosswords, albeit not always with the right answers.