JOHN AYTO

An up-to-date dictionary of modern slang words and phrases, containing over 5,000 of the most important slang terms from the English-speaking world, with illustrative quotations drawn mostly from the database of the "Oxford English Dictionary".

Saving the alphabetical listing for the index, British lexicographer Ayto presents terms in sections on areas of life and the world that generate slang. Leading the pack, unsurprisingly, are the body and its functions, and people and society. Others include sustenance and intoxication, thought and communication, and location and movement. Each entry includes the date of the first known written appearance, a definition and sometimes an explanation, and a recent example.

A lively, authoritative, and up-to-date look at the world of rhyming slang, from its origins in London''s 19th-century underworld to the buzzwords of 21st-century popney. Arranged by topic, including Crime, Food and Drink, Illness, Money, Sex, and Sport, this highly readable collection is at once an informative source to the story behind some of our most lively expressions and a browser''s delight.

Laid out in an A-Z format with detailed cross references, and written in a style that is both authoritative and accessible, Word Origins is a valuable historical guide to the English language.

The average English speaker knows 50,000 words in contemporary use - 25 more words than there are stars in the night sky visible to the naked eye. Yet stripped down to its origins, this apparently huge vocabulary is in reality a much smaller number of words from Latin, French and the Germanic languages. It is estimated that every year, 800 neologisms are added to the English language: acronyms - ''yuppie'', blended words - ''motel'', and those taken from foreign languages - ''savoir-faire''. The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Word Origins provides a concise history of over 8,000 of the most commonly used words. The range of information spans from derivations as simple as ''a'' and ''one'' from ''an'', to historical relations between words which would be obscure to all but the most lexically-minded. For instance ''vice'' with its several uses in English - a wickedness, a holding tool - is derived via Old French from two separate Latin words: ''vitium'' (defect, offence), and ''vitis'' (vine) which gave ''viticulture''. The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Word Origins demonstrates how the diverse influences on English have given rise to some unlikely but fascinating lexical relations.''Bishop'' had no ecclesiastical origins, but was in fact derived from the Greek ''episkopos'', meaning ''overseer'', and shares origins with ''spy''. In strict etymological terms, a ''dairy'' should employ a female kneader of bread. Laid out in an A-Z format with detailed cross references, written in a style that is both authoritative and accessible, the Bloomsbury Dictionary of Word Origins is a valuable historical guide to the English language.