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I Always Look Up the Word 'Egregious'
Armed with a red pencil, scissors, tape, and index cards, author Maxwell Nurnberg spent years scouring The New York Times, the The New Yorker, and the New York Review of Books, with the aim of creating a new kind of vocabulary book. The result is a veritable panoply of words -- drawn from the real-life context of written and spoken language.
290 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 8, 2008
A collection of fairly common to highly obscure words, with examples and (usually) etymology. Not the best of the books of this type I've read, but decent. The most interesting part, to me, is that the examples were taken from news stories in the late 1970s. Consequently, I read more about the Jimmy Carter administration in one week than in the previous 20 years.
January 10, 2010
Interesting take on a dictionary. Sections include pretentious words, foreign language words/phrases we often see in novels (sotto voce, quid pro quo, etc.), words that may fool you, and other categories. Not a book to be read straight through but to pick up every now and then and read some of the selections.
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August 7, 2009Pretty good so far! It's kind of hit-or-miss - there will be words that seem quite common to me. And often there are words used in the definitions or descriptions that I can't find defined in the book. Maybe that's because it's 25 years old though.
June 25, 2008
The tag line for this book is "A vocabulary book for people who don't need one." How true this is! I try to read a word a day, I'm a long way from actually finishing the book and I've had it for several years. Love this book!
September 30, 2007
A great book for word lovers and sporadic readers.
March 3, 2008
words like schmaltz just make me happy
June 29, 2012
I read this book while studying for the GRE and it was a nice break from all the formal GRE vocabulary study books.
March 28, 2009
Not quite as good as "The Highly Selective Thesaurus..." but it does reference words that even those of us who don't always look up the word egregious can appreciate.
May 11, 2009
It literally is a vocabulary book for people who don't need one.
I kind of need it , to feel like one of those people though...ironic.
I kind of need it , to feel like one of those people though...ironic.
October 4, 2010
A word lover's must read. Warning though, this book is only for word lovers. Enjoy
December 10, 2012
I love reading & rereading this book:-)
December 13, 2012
I LOVE WORD BOOKS
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews