Reddit mentions: The best language humor books

Oh, what a fun comment!

And here I was worried that this poem was way too obvious, haha. I usually struggle in a place between extremely obscure references and trying to craft simple things. You're right, that the poem is only a device for me to think about some of my favourite words. I love the sound of the words "chalk" and "ash" and I find these references to them perennially in my own writing. This was my attempt to think out why because I had never done so. I'll consider the title - in the end, they are my favourite words, and it's as simple as that.

The first three lines are quotes. Yes, the mauve thing is absolutely because of his synaesthesia! There is a book on the subject of Nabokov's favourite word: https://www.amazon.ca/Nabokovs-Favorite-Word-Mauve-Bestsellers/dp/1501105388 I was on a John Donne binge last summer and in one scholar's work I read, he made a comment to the effect that gold and wombs were subjects never far from Donne's mind. And for Hopkins, the line in God's Grandeur: "it will flame out, like shining from shook foil" was the first poetic image I ever fell in love with. That was also the first modern poem I ever memorized. So this is about poets and writers I love, and about being in love with them through this historical distance.

Poetic love is not tender, though. It is the stuff of chalk and ash - breaking oneself, crumbling, at best hoping for a transcendental immolation in that burning fire of desiring to create but having it consume you. The rest of the poem is on those themes of the literal visual effects of chalk and ash, and the quasi-alchemical process by which they change to things which can be used for annotation: one dark(as in the charcoal that preceded ash), the other light. It's also about hoping to create things - like poems - that might live on after you. A process which resembles birth, but also death. Or the poems, if they do not live, might also be consumed by fire and fall into obscurity, also becoming ash.

I'm so intrigued that ash is "too bright" in the Talmud, and that blindness is a condition of light, not darkness. I was thinking of that muted whiteness ash has, so dry that you sometimes can't see its contours.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
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Forgotten! I would love a used copy!

Thanks for the contest! Frank and Beans!

I'm surprised that nobody's yet mentioned The Superior Person's Book of Words series. The author catalogs lots of old and unusual words, and gives comedic descriptions of their use. It's a really funny read. These books taught me my favorite insult: 'slubberdegullion' - a slovenly or worthless person.

I recommend The Superior Person's Book of Words by Peter Bowler

If you're interested in the history of artificial languages, I would highly recommend In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent:

https://www.amazon.com/Land-Invented-Languages-Esperanto-Dreamers-ebook/dp/B001NLL2Q6

Joseph E. Joseph's Language and Politics is a very good, accessible book on the nature of language in the world.

Culture and history through language is studied in Geoffrey Hughes' Swearing, in that our concepts of what is profane reflects our changing societies.

I think I learned that word in the superior person's book of words

Ok, here's something!
This one's filled with the word "WORK!" for 70 pages!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MAKE-MONEY-J-DUNCAN-joke-prank/dp/1543011268/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487450177&sr=8-1&keywords=r+j+duncan

This one's just the word "Whore" in fifty languages. There's also one for the words "Asshole", "Shit", and "Trump". The Trump one's just translated into 'Dictator'
https://www.amazon.co.uk/WHORE-Learn-Fifty-Languages-DUNCAN-LANGUAGES/dp/1542975956/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1487450177&sr=8-6&keywords=r+j+duncan

This is from the stuff-found-on-the-street scrapbook Found. Many far more interesting things can be found in that compilation.

We hand these out at the new hard border. You don't need to try and decipher our tweets.

Edit. Butchered the link.

The Fictionary is two things.

It is both a flexicon[1] of new words, mined from the morphologoshpere[2], and existing words that have been given new vocabularity[3] with which to help liberate the Big Goof hidden, sometimes trapped, within.

The Fictionary is meant to be amusing. It is not meant to alarm, upset, or offend. But it may. To those who are not easily amused, we give you fair warning: this work may be dangerous to your bs[4].

The Fictionary is presented 'as is' for your enjoyment and is not intended for any practical purpose. Use at your own risk.

[1] Flexicon: A book of new words with rubberized meanings and new meanings for rubberized words.

[2] Morphologosphere: The space of all possible words within a lingocosm. See Lingocosm.

[3] Vocabularity: 1.) A proclivity to vocalize with vivacious verve vexatious and clever verbiage.

[4] Bs: 1.) Belief system, a self-reinforcing collection of perhaps previously separate and diverse pronouncements, observed facts and/or collected opinions, united either by (correct) religious faith or (false) superstition, and/or aided by imagination, scientific method, moral philosophy, artful poetry, mathematical code, logic or lack thereof, reason, no reason or just because. 2.) Bachelor of Science, an undergraduate degree which may bestow upon its recipient the tendency to assume a false sense of expertise in the academic area of the degree, thus reinforcing the bs. 3.) British Standard, a codified system of measures and measurements agreed upon by Royal Charter by which certifications can be issued which may lead to assuming authority in the commercial area of the certification, thus reinforcing the bs. 4.) Bullshit, a self-reinforcing collection of perhaps previously separate and diverse pronouncements, observed facts and/or collected opinions, united either by (correct) religious faith or (false) superstition, and/or imagination, scientific method, moral philosophy, artful poetry, mathematical code, logic or lack thereof, reason, no reason or just because. See Belief.

https://www.amazon.com/Fucking-Apostrophes-Simon-Griffin/dp/1785781413

> https://www.amazon.com/Emoji-Book-Eva-Magdalena-Seiser/dp/153360357X

I can't believe Gutenberg published the first book only to see centuries later a book about emojis.

https://www.amazon.com/Emoji-Book-Eva-Magdalena-Seiser/dp/153360357X

https://www.amazon.com/Nabokovs-Favorite-Word-Mauve-Bestsellers/dp/1501105388

Or you could just buy this book which more than likely spawned this page.

Caution: Door Will Swing Open and NAIL You!

maybe you should understand meanings of words instead. here's a book for you. and you still didn't answer my question from b4

If You Can't Say Anything Nice, Say It in Yiddish: The Book of Yiddish Insults and Curses

It Came From Beneath the Slush Pile: 20 Kinds of Stupid: An Anthology of Idiot Heroes and Ridiculous Heroines

> twenty fatally flawed flash stories by Holly Lisle and students

>
>If there’s one thing more fun than writing awesome stories, it’s occasionally indulging in the worst excesses and writing awesomely bad stories. Holly Lisle and a group of her students put all of the most clichéd, badly formed, and just plain wrong techniques into as few words as they could, and gathered them together as a way of leading by (horrific) example and illustrating why sometimes, the rules really are there to help (and yes, run-on sentences are bad too).

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Best kind of price...free.