A Miscellany for Word Lovers

More than 100 vocabulary-building quizzes make up the core of the book, with shorter sections on:

* The fascinating origins of words

* Quotes and misquotes

* Slang, dialects and secret languages

* Unforgettable Adverts, Famous Lines from Novels and Movies

* Newspeak, Basic English, spelling reform

* Malapropisms, politicians'' blunders and ''mispeakings''

* Mnemonics and other memory joggers

* Palindromes and anagrams

* Semaphore. Morse, tic-tac, hand gestures and other ways of speaking without words

Entry after entry explores the byways, oddities and curiosities of the English language.