books tagged “ref”

This study of five major novels by Dickens looks at the tensions between the "private" and "public" aspect of his work. [via]

With over 10,000 total entries, The Oxford Dictionary of Music is the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and accessible music reference of its size now available. Here is a wealth of concise informationon music and musicians from the Middle Ages to the present day. Written to appeal to general readers as well as academics and professionals, the book is an indispensable addition to the reference shelf of the concert goer, the opera buff, the record buyer, the radio listener (and television watcher), or anyone involved in music, whether amateur or professional.
From Abbado to Zuckerman, from Abide With Me to Zar und Zimmermann, from Accordion to Zither, the book's easy-to-use, alphabetically arranged entries emcompass musical topics of all kinds: composers, performing artists in all fields, orchestras, titles and descriptions of individual works (including operas and ballets), musical instruments, musical forms and terms, institutions, and writers on music. Its coverage of composers is exceptional, offering up-to-date and accurate lists of principal works with unparalleled nationalities.
The book is a greatly revised and enlarged edition of Michael Kennedy's popular Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. It adds almost 500 completely new entries and features extensive changes and revisions (including complete rewriting in many cases) of some 150 other entries.
Among the 10,307 A-Z entries in The Oxford deictionary of Music, the reader will find: --Biographies of over 2,000 composers --Extensive, accessible, up-to-date lists of composers' works --Almost 1,800 entries on performers --Over 2,200 definitions of musical terms --Over 550 entries on musical instruments --Abundant cross-references --Attractive, readable two-column format About the Author:
One of England's foremost music authorities, Michael Kennedy has been music critic of the Daily Telegraph of London since 1950 and its northern editor since 1960. He has written books on Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Britten, as well as on Mahler, Strauss, Barbirolli, and the Halle Orchestra. [via]

Este diccionario tambien puede recortarse por terminos y ser leido a modo de entretenimeinto familiar, o armar un juego de loteria con el mismo. [via]

The Dictionary of Imaginary Places is best described as a guidebook of the make-believe. A good way to understand what Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi set out to do with their book is to imagine that you want to travel to a place like Oz, as in The Wizard of. What you remember from watching the classic movie and what you would want to know as a traveler are two very distinct things. What you'll earn in this book is that Oz is a large rectangular country where everyone works half the time and plays half the time, one that is divided into four smaller countries: Munchkin Country, Winkie Country, Quadling Country, and Gillikin Country. Flip through more of the book's alphabetized listings and you'll discover Fuddlecumjig, a town in Oz's Quadling Country whose inhabitants, the Fuddles, are among the most curious people in Oz. The main peculiarity is that they are made of many pieces, rather like jigsaw puzzles, and literally fall apart when strangers approach, and have to be reassembled with skill and patience. A travel tip for readers with vivid imaginations: put Fuddlecumjig's cook together first if you want a meal. And so go the descriptions of more than 1,200 worlds invented by storytellers throughout history, from Homer's Wandering Rocks in the Odyssey to Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. But there's more here than just the worlds of literature and film. You can learn more about John Lennon's Nutopia from his album Mind Games. Nutopia is a country with no land, no boundaries, no passports, and no laws other than cosmic laws. And the Beatles' Pepperland from Yellow Submarine is described as a country 18,000 leagues beneath the Sea of Green, where inhabitants dress in bright colors and rainbows are frequent. Written with rich descriptions that bring places to life, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places is a wonderful, magical reference book perfect for fiction lovers. --John Russell [via]

Composition teachers throughout the English-speaking world have been pushing this book on their students since it was first published in 1957. Co-author White later revised it, and it remains the most compact and lucid handbook we have for matters of basic principles of composition, grammar, word usage and misusage, and writing style. [via]

This volume of colour photographs follows the social behaviour of horses at liberty, capturing their dynamism and elegance. A quotation for every picture is also included taken from Virgil, Shakespeare, Herman Melville, D.H. Lawrence, Eugene Delacroix and others. [via]

While the "Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece" is designed for scholarly research, the "Greek New Testament, 4th Revised Edition "is designed for translators and students.

Like NA27, this is the leading edition of the original text of the New Testament. It contains the same Greek text as NA27, differing only in some details of punctuation and paragraphing. The format of UBS4 is in several respects more user-friendly for students and translators than NA27. It has a more spacious appearance and a larger font. English subheadings assist in navigating the text for those who may be less familiar with Greek. Old Testament quotations appear in easily recognizable bold font. Synoptic parallels are clearly listed under English headings.

The critical apparatus includes exegetically significant variants (fewer than NA27) but adds extensive manuscript evidence (more than NA27) for each variant, thereby offering in-depth instruction for students on how variants and the evidence for them work together.

An introduction in English is included and an optional "Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament" by Barclay Newman is available. [via]

Learn hiragana and katakana more quickly and easily than ever before Japanese for Busy People: Kana Workbook is a concise course for busy students who want to learn the two kana scripts, hiragana and katakana, as effectively as possible in a limited amount of time. This workbook offers a unique and proven approach to writing accurate and well-formed kana that has been tried and tested in the classrooms of AJALT. The pronunciation and configuration of the kana are taught in tandem, based on a solid foundation of clear-cut commentary, unique writing drills, and an optional audio cassette called Japanese for Busy People: Kana Workbook Tape. Using basic sentence patterns and phrases, the student learns not only how to read, write, and pronounce hiragana and katakana, but also how to incorporate and distinguish Japanese script in the living language.
The Kana Workbook is a fully integrated component of the Japanese for Busy People series. All sentence patterns and vocabulary have been modeled after Lessons 1 through 10 of the best-selling Japanese for Busy People 1. Used together, these two books accelerate and strengthen the learning process. It is the ideal workbook for anyone using or planning to use the Kana Version of Japanese for Busy People.
The Kana Workbook has the following features:
* a unique approach to well-written Kana
* parallel learning of reading, writing, listening, and pronouncing
* optional audio cassette Japanese for Busy People: Kana Workbook Tape
* focus on basic sentence patterns and Kana usage
* fully integrated with the Japanese for Busy People series [via]

Japanese for Busy People is, as the title suggests, a concise course for busy students who want to learn natural, spoken Japanese as effectively as possible in a limited amount of time. This new Kana Version has been adapted and redesigned to reflect current thinking on Japanese-as-a-second-language education. Romanized Japanese, often criticized as being the main obstacle to accurate and fluent pronunciation of the spoken language, has been omitted in favor of native hiragana and katakana scripts. Learning kana from the very beginning will also facilitate a smooth and fast transition to kanji study. Enough vocabulary and grammar have been provided to enable the learner to communicate in uncomplicated adult Japanese, without having to memorize excessive amounts of vocabulary and language patterns that are not immediately useful. Exercises and Quiz sections also appear in kana to reinforce written and oral comprehension as well as production skills. Japanese for Busy People has been prepared under the guidance of a working group of experienced Japanese language instructors who reviewed and tested the material in an authentic classroom environment.

The Kana Version of Japanese for Busy People 1 is the ideal textbook for anyone who wishes to learn real, natural, conversational Japanese and actually communicate with native Japanese speakers. It also provides a solid foundation and a valuable resource for those who would like to go further with their study of the Japanese language.

This new Kana Version includes:
* new introduction explaining how to use the text at home or school
* new, larger, and easier-to-read typography
* new, classroom-friendly, eye-catching page design
* clear, concise explanations of how the language works
* full English-Japanese/Japanese-English glossaries. [via]

Driven by learning goals, previous editions of this text have been widely adopted for their accurate, complete, and up-to-date coverage. While maintaining these hallmarks, this revision includes increased coverage of adulthood and aging, a new Interlude feature on applications, and updated research with more 21st-century citations than ever before. [via]

If time is of the essence, you can find what you seek in a jiffy (an actual unit of time meaning 1/100 of a second) in the New York Public Library Desk Reference's chapter 1: "Time and Dates." Once there, however, beware. You may begin by looking up what time it is in Addis Ababa when it's 12 noon in New York (8 p.m. is what you'll discover), but ere long you'll be browsing the perpetual calendar (1775 to 2098), refreshing your memory as to what fortnightly means (once every two weeks, just as you thought), and skimming the lists of major holidays worldwide. But "Times and Dates" is just the beginning. Section I--"The Physical World"--also contains vast data pertaining to weights and measures, biology, the physical sciences, mathematics, and technology, plus inventions and scientific discoveries. Delving therein you can find how many cubic inches are in a pint, how to diagnose and treat constipation in your pet, which plants are poisonous, what tropism means, when the next total eclipse of the sun will take place, the URLs for major Internet search engines, and the toll-free phone numbers for major national Internet service providers.

Other sections of the desk reference include music, literature, and the visual arts, religions, philosophy, and museums around the world, alphabets, grammar, and daily etiquette. Life-saving first-aid procedures are described, as are cooking tips, stain-removal advice, personal-finance details, and legal information, plus useful addresses and phone numbers relating to adoption, disabilities, and domestic violence, alcoholism, family planning, and television networks. With sections on travel, sports and games, as well as the United States and the political world, this is an irreplaceable reference of great scope and value. It is the mark of a great reference that the information you desire be readily accessible when deadlines threaten, and endlessly entertaining in your leisure hours; the New York Public Library Desk Reference flawlessly passes both tests. --Stephanie Gold [via]

For the past sixty-five years, the massive Oxford English Dictionary has offered the last word on the English language. Now, Oxford University Press is pleased to announce a landmark new dictionary--The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary--that brings the authority of the Oxford Dictionary Department and the vast scholarship of the OED itself within the reach of individuals.
This completely new dictionary covers virtually every word or phrase in use in English--worldwide--since 1700. Not strictly an abridgment of the OED, the New Shorter draws on the OED's ongoing revision as well as its own independent research program. Each entry provides all the information you would expect from a leading unabridged dictionary: it identifies each word's various meanings, origins, part of speech, pronunciation (in the International Phonetic Alphabet), and combinations in which the word is often found, as well as cross-references to related words. The New Shorter, however, offers something that no competitor can match: the historical, literary approach made justly famous by the OED. Thousands upon thousands of changing meanings are followed through history, illustrated by more than 83,000 quotations, from Ben Franklin to Lord Byron, from Jane Austen to Kazuo Ishiguro. The changing emphasis in the meaning of fiend, for instance, is shown by quotes ranging from Milton ("The Gates...belching outrageous flame...since the Fiend pass'd through") to J.D. Salinger ("Old Brossard was a bridge fiend, and he started looking around the dorm for a game").
The historical approach of The New Shorter offers a true feel for our rich, subtly textured language. Words are a palimpsest: along with their current meanings, many words contain the shadows of their past definitions. Understanding a word's history can help writers and speakers charge their language with nuance as well as precision. The New Shorter offers a delightful introduction to the fruits of etymology, providing a fascinating guide to the evolution of language--for both scholars and those who need a practical aid to contemporary usage.
In addition, The New Shorter offers truly international--and up-to-date--coverage. Every year, the Oxford Dictionary Department receives more than 200,000 notices of new words and meanings. These notices come from the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, South Africa, India--everywhere English is spoken. As a result, this two-volume work boasts an unprecedented range of headwords and meanings, drawn from the arts and humanities as well as the sciences and technology. From molecular biology to computer software, from human anthropology to theoretical physics, the subjects covered in this dictionary make it a useful resource for scientific professionals--and for the unscientific struggling with technical terms.
The result is the world's most comprehensive, thorough, up-to-date dictionary of English. A fascinating and endlessly browsable reference, The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary provides the definitive resource for scholars, professionals, general readers--for anyone, in fact, who wants the wealth of language available only in an unabridged dictionary.
FEATURES:



· The immense scholarship of the Oxford English Dictionary-- Brought within reach of everyone:
* 2 Volumes
* 500,000 definitions
* 7.5 million words
* 4,000 pages
* 97,600 headwords
* 25,250 variant spellings
* 87,400 illustrative quotations
* 7,333 sources of quotations
(including 5,519 individual authors)



· Combines information from the OED with the work of a massive research project, offering thousands of fresh entries and new definitions



· Up-to-the-minute coverage of English--reaching back to 1700--with thousands of new words from a worldwide monitoring program



· Thorough, completely current scientific coverage



· Traces the etymology and evolution of thousands of worlds (candidate, for instance, stems from a Latin word meaning "clothed un white," as Roman candidates for public office dressed in white togas)



· A two convenient volumes, with full-size type [via]

Considering this volume is a mere 668 pages, it does a remarkable job of covering the major concepts and facts of biology, human anatomy, chemistry, physics, astronomy, Earth sciences, meteorology, environmental sciences, and engineering. Not surprising, as it was written by the New York Public Library staff who know what questions are most frequently asked by a knowledge-hungry public.

The ultimate test of such a reference volume is scrutiny of areas with which one is intimately familiar, then reading up on areas about which one is woefully ignorant. This book passed both tests: The biology chapter was sound (though I wanted much more information about evolutionary principles), and the section on particle physics was informative. Even if you already have a collection of several thousand books covering most of the sciences (like myself), this is a handy reference. And if you're a student or want access to a lot of scientific knowledge in the smallest possible non-digital package, this resource is essential for those times when you simply can't get to the library. [via]

New Testament Text in Greek, with introduction in German and English. [via]

Have you ever had doubts about when to hyphenate two words? Confused over whether you should disassociate or dissociate yourself from something? Do you know when to spell doggie as doggy? Is it really a rule that a preposition should never fall at the end of a sentence? Now there is a single convenient source you can turn to with all your questions about how to speak and write more clearly: The Oxford Guide to English Usage, now available in a completely revised New Edition.
In The Oxford Guide to English Usage Andrew Delahunty and Edmund Weiner (co-editor of the twenty-volume revised Oxford English Dictionary) provide succinct, practical advice on problems that writers struggle with every day. Designed for daily use, this marvelous handbook is organized according to basic themes (Word Formation, Pronunciation, Vocabulary, Grammar, Punctuation) and written to address the actual needs of a typical writer. Under "Word Formation," for instance, the authors offer helpful guidance on suffixes (drop the final silent e when adding -able), those troublesome hyphens, variations between British and American spelling, and why the prefix in- appears in some words and un- in others. The book's approach is consistently straightforward and practical. On the split infinitive, for example, the authors write that it should generally be avoided, but not to the extent that awkward, contorted sentences are the result. And they have this to say about prepositions: "It is a natural feature of the English language that many sentences and clauses end with a preposition, and has been since the earliest times. The alleged rule that forbids [it] should be disregarded." They also offer help on many other matters of grammar, punctuation, and pronunciation (with a thorough guide to differences in American and British usage). Along the way, the Oxford Guide to English Usage offers numerous examples from renowned writers that demonstrate proper usage--or how rules can be broken to good effect. For instance, after describing when the prefix un- should be used, the book offers this coinage by Anthony Burgess: "Joyce's arithmetic is solid and unnonsensical."
In the decade since The Oxford Guide to English Usage first appeared, it has emerged as a well-thumbed favorite of students and writers everywhere. This New Edition has been completely revised to keep abreast of our rapidly changing language, featuring 20% more material, along with the wry, practical advice that has made this book a classic. [via]

The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, 70 years in the making, was an intellectually heroic feat with a twist worthy of the greatest mystery fiction: one of its most valuable contributors was a criminally insane American physician, locked up in an English asylum for murder. British stage actor Simon Jones leads us through this uncommon meeting of minds (the other belonging to self-educated dictionary editor James Murray) at full gallop. Ultimately, it's hard to say which is more remarkable: the facts of this amazingly well-researched story, or the sound of author Simon Winchester's erudite prose. Jones's reading smoothly transports listeners to the 19th century, reminding us why so many brilliant people obsessively set out to catalogue the English language. This unabridged version contains an interview between Winchester and John Simpson, editor of the Oxford dictionary. (Running time: 6.5 hours, 6 cassettes) --Lou Schuler [via]

The making of the "Oxford English Dictionary" was a monumental 50 year task requiring thousands of volunteers. One of the keenest volunteers was a W C Minor who astonished everyone by refusing to come to Oxford to receive his congratulations. In the end, James Murray, the "OED's" editor, went to Crowthorne in Berkshire to meet him. What he found was incredible - Minor was a millionaire American civil war surgeon turned lunatic, imprisoned in Broadmoor Asylum for murder and yet who dedicated his entire cell-bound life to work on the English language. [via]

Tao Te Ching, also commonly known as Lao Tzu, is perhaps the most important of Chinese classical texts, with an unparalleled influence on Chinese thought. This bilingual edition consists of two parts. The English text in Part One is a reprint of the earlier translation of the so-called Wang Pi text, first published by Penguin Books in 1963. Part Two is the fresh translation of a text which is a conflation of two manuscripts of the Lao Tzu, dating at the latest from the early Western Han and discovered at Ma Wang Tui in December 1973. The result is a text with a fuller use of particles, free from the scribal errors and editorial tampering of subsequent ages.

Written nearly 2,500 years ago, this ancient text served as the basis for Chinese and other Eastern philosophies for generations, as well as for the I Ching. Meaning "the way that has to be followed," this version was translated in 2001 and is based on two scientific editions that were published in China at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as on the English translation rendered by the Buddhist Association in London. This version includes terms that are explained for and accessible to the modern reader. [via]

A new edition of Eric Partridge's English usage guide. It has been edited and revised by Janet Whitcut. Attacking linguistic abusage of all kinds, this guide explores a wide range of grammatical pitfalls and problems, and offers advice on the proper use of English. [via]