Simple text introduces homonyms, words that sound and look the same but have different meanings, and homophones, words that sound alike, but have different spellings and meaning.

"When President Obama signed the affordable health care act in 2009, the Vice President was overheard to utter an enthusiastic "This is a big f****** deal!" A town in Massachusetts levies $20 fines on swearing in public. Nothing is as paradoxical as our attitude toward swearing and "bad language": how can we judge profanity so harshly in principle, yet use it so frequently in practice? Though profanity is more acceptable today than ever, it is still...

For this revised thesaurus, more than 500 alphabetical headword entries and 2,500 synonyms have been specifically designed to best help beginning writers. Each headword has been carefully selected and includes the part of speech, definition, and example sentence. Synonyms following each headword are also defined and followed by a sample sentence. These sentences help the reader see how the word is normally used, and also illustrate the grammatical...

An alphabetical listing of common figures of speech, along with their definitions and origins.

Provides definitions, pronunciation, etymology, and notes on usage for more than fifty thousand words, including technical terms

Photographs and simple text introduce homophones, words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings.

Phrases and sentences illustrate the various definitions of 90,000 entry words and 120,000 definitions in this student dictionary reflecting current American usage.

"A short and entertaining book on the modern art of writing well. Why is so much writing so bad, and how can we make it better? Is the English language being corrupted by texting and social media? Do the kids today even care about good writing? Why should any of us care? In The Sense of Style, the bestselling linguist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker answers these questions and more. Rethinking the usage guide for the 21st century, Pinker doesn't...