Paul’s Book–Best Language Book Ever
Paul Yeager’s book, Literally, the Best Language Book Ever: Annoying Words and Abused Phrases You Should Never Use Again, will be released on May 6, 2008, by Perigee Books. The book consists of words, phrases, and expressions that should be avoided for various reasons, ranging from being grammatically incorrect to being overly trendy to being trite to being just plain annoying!
Chapter-by-Chapter Outline:
1. Wrong Answer: Please Try Again (grammar errors)
2. Play it Again, Sam (errors of redundancy and repetition)
3. Verbification (nouns being incorrectly used as verbs)
4. Abused and Misused (contrived words and words used incorrectly)
5. That Makes No Sense, Captain Kirk (illogical words and phrases)
6. It’s All Bad…Believe Me (excessively trendy words and expressions)
7. What a Way to Make a Living (ineffective workplace words and expressions)
8. You Thought You Were Clever, But… (phrases that may have been witty the first time they were used)
9. That’s Not What I Meant (inarticulate language)
10. Insincerity is the Highest Form of Flattery (insincere or dismissive phrases)
11. Older Than Dirt (common cliches and irrelevant phrases)
12. Stop Playing Games (ineffective sports terminology)
13. Write Your Own Book (personal language pet peeves)
The book can be pre-ordered on any number of sites, including Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com.
March 18, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Two things.
First, consider getting the table of contents for your upcoming book posted on amazon.com.
Second, the blog entries are quite good. Consider adding a feature that enables visitors to print a clean copy of each entry.
Reply from Paul: Thanks for the suggestions, Sam. The publisher controls what is on the online book- selling sites. We’re still about six weeks away from the publication date, but I’m sure that Perigee will add content to the online book sellers soon. I can–and plan to–add more information about the book on our site.
As for the second part of your comment (we were glad to see that you said “second” and not “secondly,” by the way), since we go through wordpress, I’m not sure of what we might be able to do to help with the printability–but I’ll send them an e-mail to see if there’s something we can do.
May 5, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Paul I can’t wait to buy your book. I am a huge fan of your Accuweather blog. Will you be doing any book signings in Canada?
Reply from Paul: Thanks for buying a book, and I’m glad that you enjoy the blog. I don’t anticipate any book signings in Canada, though. I did enjoy my interview with Peter Anthony Holder in Montreal, though.