That Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means by Kathryn Petras

That Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means by Kathryn Petras

An entertaining and informative guide to the most common 150 words even smart people use incorrectly, along with pithy forays into their fascinating etymologies and tangled histories of use and misuse.

Even the most erudite among us use words like apocryphal, facetious, ironic, meteorite, moot, redundant, and unique incorrectly every day. Don't be one of them. Using examples of misuse from leading newspapers, prominent public figures and famous writers, among others, language gurus Ross Petras and Kathryn Petras explain how to avoid these perilous pitfalls in the English language. Each entry also includes short histories of how and why these mistake have happened, some of the (often surprisingly nasty) debates about which uses are (and are not) mistakes, and finally, how to use these words correctly . or why to not use them at all. By the end of this book, every literati will be able to confidently, casually, and correctly toss in an a priori or a limns without hesitation.

Kathryn Petras and Ross Petras, a sister-and-brother writing duo, are the authors of numerous nonfiction books, including the New York Times bestseller You're Saying It Wrong, as well as the bestselling page-a-day calendars The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said (with over 4.8 million copies sold) and The 365 Smartest Things Ever Said. The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, Bustle, The Atlantic, the London Times, and McSweeney's have all written about or highlighted their work. They've also been on numerous radio and television programs, including Good Morning America, CNN, Fox & Friends, and NPR's Here and Now. They're now working on a program called You're Saying It Wrong for NPR affiliate KMUW.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780399581274
ISBN 10	0399581278
Title	That Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means
Author	Kathryn Petras
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Ten Speed Press
Year published	2018-09-04
Number of pages	208
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.