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This potpourri of satire on language use in Western culture will trigger chuckles and guffaws from an eclectic readership

In The Clan of the Flapdragon and Other Adventures in Etymology by B. M. W. Schrapnel, Ph.D., the pseudonymous critic satirizes a variety of subjects in and out of academe. These adventurous essays include lampoons on writing, language, and literature, and the collection is a delightful spoof of much in contemporary culture—especially areas of intellectual pretension. Readers will be entertained by anachronistic allusions, improbable parodies, whimsical etymologies, tongue-in-cheek word play, and stunning purple prose—examples of just some of the liberties Schrapnel takes with the language.

Dr. Schrapnel includes a wide array of audience reactions in the form of bogus letters from fictional readers, confirming that language and literature are everyone’s business. He also offers an annual list of words that writers and speakers should use more often—a lexicographer’s equivalent to the endangered species list—and coins terms such as prufrockery and grendelish.