Catalog Search Results
2) Ball of fire
Physical Desc
1 videodisc (111 min.) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in.
Language
English
Description
Realizing they have to hear how real people talk, a group of lexicographers end up helping a beautiful singer get away from the mob.
Author
Physical Desc
xiii, 296 pages ; 22 cm
Language
English
Description
"Brimming with intelligence and personality, a vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made - a must read for word mavens. Have you ever tried to define the word "is?" Do you have strong feelings about the word (and, yes, it is a word) "irregardless?" Did you know that OMG was first used in 1917, in a letter to Winston Churchill? These are the questions that keep lexicographers up at night. While most of us might take dictionaries for...
Author
Physical Desc
32 pages : color illustrations ; 22 x 29 cm.
Language
English
Description
A portrait of the man who wrote the first U.S. dictionary traces his youth as a bookish Connecticut farm boy and his twenty-year effort to write the all-American dictionary that was published in 1828 when he was seventy years old.
Author
Physical Desc
212 pages ; 21 cm
Language
English
Description
"Inspired as a boy by the multiple meanings to be found for a single word in the dictionary, Kohei Araki is devoted to the notion that a dictionary is a boat to carry us across the sea of words. But after thirty-seven years creating them at Gembu Books, it's time for him to retire and find his replacement. He discovers a kindred spirit in Mitsuya Majime -- a young, disheveled square peg with a penchant for collecting antiquarian books and a background...
Author
Series
Everyman's library volume no. 101
Language
English
Formats
Description
Boswell's biography of the writer Samuel Johnson.
Author
Physical Desc
x, 370 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Language
English
Description
For the first time ever, this thrilling literary detective story, doubling as a celebration of words, language, people and one of mankind's greatest achievements, unravels the mystery of the contributors from around the world who, for over seventy years, helped to codify the way we read, write and speak.
"A history and celebration of the many far-flung volunteers who helped define the English language, word by word"--
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The story of "shy young Peter Mark Roget, [for whom] books were the best companions -- and it wasn't long before Peter began writing his own book. But he didn't write stories; he wrote lists. Peter took his love for words and turned it to organizing ideas and finding exactly the right word to express just what he thought. His lists grew and grew, eventually turning into one of the most important reference books of all time"--Amazon.com.
10) Everything under
Author
Physical Desc
263 pages ; 23 cm
Language
English
Description
"Daisy Johnson's debut novel turns classical myth on its head and takes readers to a modern-day England unfamiliar to most. As daring as it is moving, Everything Under is a story of family and identity, of fate, language, love and belonging that leaves you unsettled and unstrung"--
Physical Desc
1 videodisc (124 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in.
Language
English
Description
Professor James Murray begins work compiling words for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in the mid 19th century, and receives over 10,000 entries from a patient at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dr. William Minor.
Author
Physical Desc
297 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Language
English
Description
Peter Mark Roget--polymath, eccentric, synonym aficionado--was a complicated man. He was a scholar obsessed with his work, yet he had an allure that endeared him to his contemporaries--not to mention a host of female admirers. But most notably, he made lists. Roget longed for order in his chaotic world. His father's premature death and the mental illness of his mother and sister threatened to plunge him into his own madness. And so, at the age of...
Author
Physical Desc
270 pages ; 22 cm
Language
English
Description
"Peter Winceworth, a disaffected Victorian lexicographer, inserts false entries into a dictionary - violating and subverting the dictionary's authority - in an attempt to assert some sense of individual purpose and artistic freedom. In the present day, Mallory, a young overworked and underpaid intern employed by the dictionary's publishing house, is tasked with uncovering these entries before the work is digitised. As the novel progresses and their...
15) The word detective: searching for the meaning of it all at the Oxford English Dictionary : a memoir
Author
Physical Desc
xvi, 364 pages ; 25 cm
Language
English
Description
"What do you call the part of a dog's back it can't scratch? Can you drink a glass of balderdash? And if, serendipitously, you find yourself in Serendip, then where exactly are you? The answers to all of these questions can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary, the definitive record of the English language. And there is no better guide to the dictionary's many wonderments, its quirks, and its quiddities than the former chief editor of the OED,...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Before the lost word, there was another. It arrived at the Scriptorium in a second-hand envelope, the old address crossed out and Dr Murray, Sunnyside, Oxford, written in its place. It was Da's job to open the post and mine to sit on his lap, like a queen on her throne, and help him ease each word out of its folded cradle. He'd tell me what pile to put it on and sometimes he'd pause, cover my hand with his, and guide my finger up and down and around...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"A compelling history of the national conflicts that resulted from efforts to produce the first definitive American dictionary of English. ... [English professor] Peter Martin recounts the patriotic fervor in the early American republic to produce a definitive national dictionary that would rival Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary of the English Language. But what began as a cultural war of independence from Britain devolved into a battle among lexicographers,...
Physical Desc
xxiv, 1891 pages ; 26 cm
Language
English
Description
The Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus offers a thoroughly integrated blend of dictionary and thesaurus entries. This unified approach, treating meanings and related words within the same entry, makes it easy to find -- in one place -- an abundance of information about words, and provides a far more thorough analysis of the variety and nuances of our language than is possible in a dictionary or thesaurus alone. In addition, the Language Guide...
Looking for an older book we don’t have?
Printed books not owned by Santa Fe Public Library that were released more than 6 months ago can be requested from other Interlibrary Loan libraries to be delivered to your local library for pickup. Limit: 3 per calendar month.
Looking for a newer item we don’t have?
Suggest the library purchase a new book, DVD, audiobook, or music CD through your account. Limit: 30 active requests at a time. Submit Purchase Suggestion