"The encyclopedia once shaped our understanding of the world. Created by thousands of scholars and the most obsessive of editors, a good set conveyed a sense of absolute wisdom on its reader. Contributions from Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Orville Wright, Alfred Hitchcock, Marie Curie and Indira Gandhi helped millions of children with their homework. Adults cleared their shelves in the belief that everything that was explainable was now effortlessly...

Poetically defining emotions we all feel but don't have the words to express, the creator of the popular online project of the same name invites readers on his epic quest to fill the gaps in the language of emotion.

"What do you call the part of a dog's back it can't scratch? Can you drink a glass of balderdash? And if, serendipitously, you find yourself in Serendip, then where exactly are you? The answers to all of these questions can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary, the definitive record of the English language. And there is no better guide to the dictionary's many wonderments, its quirks, and its quiddities than the former chief editor of the OED,...

"A picture book biography of Noah Webster"--

We live our lives word by word-to build our relationships, to convey our points of view, to object to wrongs done to us or to others, to comfort our children and our friends. We also use the wrong words-sometimes unknowingly-and get ourselves into situations we'd rather not be in. As Stephen R. Covey points out in his introduction: • Words sell and words repel • Words lead and words impede • Words heal and words kill Kevin hall...