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The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language by American Heritage...
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Condition:
Good
A book that has been read but is in good condition. Very minimal damage to the cover including scuff marks, but no holes or tears. The dust jacket for hard covers may not be included. Binding has minimal wear. The majority of pages are undamaged with minimal creasing or tearing, minimal pencil underlining of text, no highlighting of text, no writing in margins. No missing pages.
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US $5.22 (approx S$ 6.73) USPS Media MailTM.
Located in: Granbury, Texas, United States
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Estimated between Sat, 4 Oct and Thu, 9 Oct to 94104
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eBay item number:177277302170
Item specifics
- Condition
- ISBN
- 9780395448953
About this product
Product Information
The third edition of this dictionary reflects changes in the language in the last ten years with an A-Z section of more than sixteen thousand new words.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade & Référence Publishers
ISBN-10
0395448956
ISBN-13
9780395448953
eBay Product ID (ePID)
154346
Product Key Features
Number of Pages
2184 Pages
Language
English
Publication Name
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
Publication Year
1992
Subject
Dictionaries
Type
Not Available
Subject Area
Référence
Format
Hardcover
Dimensions
Item Height
2.5 in
Item Weight
110 Oz
Item Length
11.5 in
Item Width
9 in
Additional Product Features
Edition Number
3
Dewey Edition
21
Reviews
Dictionaries and thesauri have come to play an interesting role in American culture. More than the rented cap and gown, more than the diploma, they are visible symbols of the high school graduate . . . They are the likeliest presents that a graduate will receive, an unfailing resource from distant aunts and uncles. They are the armor for the future, being the two books a 18-year-old will take along to college, where they are to ease his or her passage through freshman English. They even bear ritual names. The dictionary is generally called Webster's no matter who edited or published it. In the United States, dictionaries have about a 200-year history. Noah Webster did not edit the first one, but he did edit the first major one, and American dictionaries have borne both his mark and his name ever since. Among the characteristics are wide learning, pedantry, humorlessness, a wish to separate American from English speech and a horror of anything vulgar. (Using the simplified spelling he hoped to make popular, Webster wrote "An Address to Yung Ladies" in 1790. Here is what he told him: "The moment a woman suffers to fall from her tung, any expression that indicates the leest indelicacy of mind; the moment she ceeses to blush at such expression from our sex, she ceeses to be respected; because as a lady she is no longer respectable.") In our time, horror of vulgarity has vanished, being replaced with something more like relish; and though several of the various Websters have wavered back and forth, putting the four-letter words in one edition and taking them out in the next, full expression now prevails. Almost any dictionary will define all sexual language, and often all racial and ethnic terms, too. But the wide learning, the pedantry, and the humorlessness remain - with one exception. That exception happens to be the one important American dictionary that does not pretend to be connected with Noah Webster. The American Heritage Dictionary came out in 1969 and immediately distinguished itself as the liveliest wordbook in America. Improvement has not ceased. A much-revised third edition is now out. It is surely the most pleasurable dictionary ever published in this country, and one of the most useful. There are about five characteristics which set the American Heritage apart from the various Websters. One is a series of word histories, dotted through the book. There are about 400 of them. These are not mere etymologies, they are one paragraph essays, extremely well written and sometimes quite funny. The one that elegantly gives the history of the most four-lettery of all four-letter words is likely so to captivate most college freshman that they will wind up reading all 400, hoping for more. They'll get it too. Not just oral-anal surprises, such as the extraordinary history of the word "fizzle," but also sober linguistic history, as of the words "alligator," "cynic," "funky" and "tooth." If anything will convert the average student to a fascinated interest in language, I think these word histories will. A few are perhaps too pedantically jocular; most strike just the right note. Another discussion of the American Heritage is a series of about 500 usage notes, written in the same readable essay style as the word histories. The various Websters also treat usage, but none do it half so well. I knew I was going to love the book early on, when I came to a usage note for the verb "to author." I had winced for years, reading phrases like "she has authored four best sellers" when "she has written" would clearly serve the turn. But I never analyzed my discomfort. Suppose you look up the verb "author" in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate. You find it defined as "to be the author of," and that is the total entry. Now look it up in the Random House Webster's College Dictionary. The definition is "to be the author of." Then there is a brief usage example: "to author a novel.
Grade from
Seventh Grade
Age Range
12
Target Audience
Trade
Illustrated
Yes
Dewey Decimal
423
Grade to
Twelfth Grade
Lc Classification Number
Pe1628.A623 1992
Item description from the seller
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Seller feedback (584)
- s***n (2092)- Feedback left by buyer.Past monthVerified purchaseThanks for the fast service.
- Automatische Bewertung von eBay- Feedback left by buyer.Past monthBestellung erfolgreich durchgeführt - mit Sendungsverfolgung und fristgerecht
- Automatische Bewertung von eBay- Feedback left by buyer.Past monthBestellung erfolgreich durchgeführt - mit Sendungsverfolgung und fristgerecht