Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language FanaticRandom House Publishing Group, 11 nov 2008 - 192 pagine When Chinese shopkeepers tried to find a written equivalent of Coca-Cola, one set of characters they chose was pronounced “ke-kou ke-la.” It sounded right, but it literally translated as “bite the wax tadpole.” Language, like travel, is always stranger than we expect and often more beautiful than we imagine. In Biting the Wax Tadpole Elizabeth Little takes a decidedly unstuffy and accessible tour of grammar via the languages of the world—from Lithuanian noun declensions and imperfective Russian verbs to Ancient Greek and Navajo. And in one of the most courageous acts in the history of popular grammar books, she attempts to provide an explanation of verbal aspect that people might actually understand. Other difficult and pressing questions addressed in Biting the Wax Tadpole include: *Just what, exactly, the Swedish names of IKEA products mean *Why Icelandic speakers must decide if the numbers 1-4 are plural *How Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) was able to take an otherwise unexceptional pair of breakfast foods and turn them into literary fodder for generations *Why Joanie Loves Chachi was Korea’s highest rated television show ever *Why Basque grammar seems downright kooky to just about anyone who isn’t a native speaker |
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Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic Elizabeth Little Anteprima non disponibile - 2007 |
Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic Elizabeth Little Anteprima non disponibile - 2008 |
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able accent action actually adjectives adverbs American Ancient Arabic aspect basic bloody blue called characters Chinese classifier color combination comes common conjugation consonants counting course culture definite depending distinction English entirely example five French gender German give grammatical Greek Guaraní hand indicate instance it's Italian Japanese kind known language Latin less linguistic literally look Mandarin mark means mood never noun number system object once originally particularly past pattern Persian phrase pick pitch pitch accent plural polite possible probably pronouns question reason refer require result Russian sentence separate simple single singular slightly sometimes sort sound Spanish speak speakers speech spoken syllable tense there's things tone translation turn twenty verb voice word