Results by title
53 books match the query 'Topic' and 6 start with w
We Are Not Amused
Victorian Views on Pronunciation as Told in the Pages of PunchDavid Crystal
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2017
Have you ever cringed while hearing someone mispronounce a word—or, worse, been tripped up by a wily silent letter yourself? Consider yourself lucky that you do not live in Victorian England, when the way you pronounced a word was seen as a sometimes-damning index of who you were and how you should be treated. No wonder then that jokes about English usage provided one of Punch magazine’s most fruitful veins of humor for sixty years, from its first issue in 1841 to 1900.
For We Are Not Amused, renowned English-language expert David Crystal has explored the most common pronunciation-related controversies during the reign of Queen Victoria and brought together the cartoons and articles that poked fun at them, adding insightful commentary on the context of the times. The collection brings to light a society where class distinctions ruled. Crystal explains why people felt so strongly about accents and identifies which accents were the main sources of jokes, from the dropped h’s of the Cockney working class to the upper-class tendency to drop the final g in words like “huntin’” and “fishin’.”
In this fascinating and highly entertaining book, Crystal shows that outrage over proper pronunciation is nothing new—our feelings today have their origins in the ways our Victorian predecessors thought about the subject.
For We Are Not Amused, renowned English-language expert David Crystal has explored the most common pronunciation-related controversies during the reign of Queen Victoria and brought together the cartoons and articles that poked fun at them, adding insightful commentary on the context of the times. The collection brings to light a society where class distinctions ruled. Crystal explains why people felt so strongly about accents and identifies which accents were the main sources of jokes, from the dropped h’s of the Cockney working class to the upper-class tendency to drop the final g in words like “huntin’” and “fishin’.”
In this fascinating and highly entertaining book, Crystal shows that outrage over proper pronunciation is nothing new—our feelings today have their origins in the ways our Victorian predecessors thought about the subject.
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We're Thankful for the Moisture
A Gay Guy's Guide to Mormon Faith, Family, and Fruit PreservationMcCann, Eli
Signature Books, 2026
We’re Thankful for the Moisture contains personal essays by award-winning humor columnist Eli McCann for The Salt Lake Tribune, along with corresponding cartoons by the Tribune’s Pat Bagley. McCann explores cultural Mormonism and his experiences growing up in Utah as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 1990s, coming out as gay in adulthood, leaving his faith, and navigating life in Salt Lake City with his husband and their young child. Known for his observational humor, nostalgia, and compassion for those in his community who span the religious spectrum, McCann weaves together the silliness that often comes out of communal traditions with the humanity of those who hold those traditions dear. “I still think there’s no better sound than the background noise of neighbors being neighbors,” he writes, ”the simple hum of a people gathered.” While there is much humor to be found in baffling cultural entreaties, like McCann’s grandmother sincerely claiming that nineteenth-century Mormon pioneers wouldn’t trade places with those who live in 2025, or parents justifying a curfew time by insisting “the Holy Ghost goes to bed at midnight,” there is also beauty in what prompts a person to believe such things. McCann’s writings seek to prove just that.
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We're Thankful for the Moisture
A Gay Guy's Guide to Mormon Faith, Family, and Fruit PreservationMcCann, Eli
Signature Books, 2026
We’re Thankful for the Moisture contains personal essays by award-winning humor columnist Eli McCann for The Salt Lake Tribune, along with corresponding cartoons by the Tribune’s Pat Bagley. McCann explores cultural Mormonism and his experiences growing up in Utah as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 1990s, coming out as gay in adulthood, leaving his faith, and navigating life in Salt Lake City with his husband and their young child. Known for his observational humor, nostalgia, and compassion for those in his community who span the religious spectrum, McCann weaves together the silliness that often comes out of communal traditions with the humanity of those who hold those traditions dear. “I still think there’s no better sound than the background noise of neighbors being neighbors,” he writes, ”the simple hum of a people gathered.” While there is much humor to be found in baffling cultural entreaties, like McCann’s grandmother sincerely claiming that nineteenth-century Mormon pioneers wouldn’t trade places with those who live in 2025, or parents justifying a curfew time by insisting “the Holy Ghost goes to bed at midnight,” there is also beauty in what prompts a person to believe such things. McCann’s writings seek to prove just that.
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When Grandpa Delivered Babies and Other Ozarks Vignettes
Benjamin G. Rader
University of Illinois Press, 2024
People in the Ozarks have long told humorous vignettes that make sense of triumph and tragedy, relay family and local history, and of course entertain. Benjamin G. Rader’s memoir offers a loving portrait of the Ozarks of his youth, where his grandfather midwifed babies and his great uncle Jerry Rader laughed so hard at one of his own stories that he choked to death on a pork chop. As he reveals the Ozarks of the 1930s through 1950s, Rader dispels the myths of the region’s people as isolated and sharing a single set of values and behaviors. He also takes readers inside the life of the extended Rader family and its neighborhoods, each of which drew on storytelling to strengthen resolve in lives roiled by change, economic depression, and the shift of daily life from the country to the city.
An alluring blend of remembering and reflection, When Grandpa Delivered Babies and Other Ozarks Vignettes provides a vivid portrait of a fading time.
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Where There's Smoke There's Dinner
Regina Carpenter
Parkhurst Brothers, Inc., 2012
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William S. Burroughs' "The Revised Boy Scout Manual"
An Electronic RevolutionEdited by Geoffrey D. Smith & John M. Bennett with an afterword by V. Vale
The Ohio State University Press, 2018
Before the era of fake news and anti-fascists, William S. Burroughs wrote about preparing for revolution and confronting institutionalized power. In this work, Burroughs’ parody becomes a set of rationales and instructions for destabilizing the state and overthrowing an oppressive and corrupt government. As with much of Burroughs’ work, it is hard to say if it is serious or purely satire. The work is funny, horrifying, and eerily prescient, especially concerning the use of language and social media to undermine institutions.
The Revised Boy Scout Manual was a work Burroughs revisited many times, but which has never before been published in its complete form. Based primarily on recordings of a performance of the complete piece found in the archives at the OSU libraries, as well as various incomplete versions of the typescript found at Arizona State University and the New York Public Library archives, this lost masterpiece of satiric subversion is finally available in its entirety.
The Revised Boy Scout Manual was a work Burroughs revisited many times, but which has never before been published in its complete form. Based primarily on recordings of a performance of the complete piece found in the archives at the OSU libraries, as well as various incomplete versions of the typescript found at Arizona State University and the New York Public Library archives, this lost masterpiece of satiric subversion is finally available in its entirety.
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