So, I had 5 years of Spanish in High School and College, only to learn that I really couldn't understand most of what I heard. It was only when I was introduced to the Spanish cuss words that I realized that there was more to Spanish expletives than "Ah Caramba!" From a strictly academic perspective this book will fill you in on the rich and varied vocabulary of Spanish vulgarities, but it should also help you to converse more effectively with your Hispanic friends. For those words and phrases which are only understood in a cultural context, we explain their usage and include sample sentences. As anyone who speaks more than one language knows, words don't always translate precisely. In Spanish that's particularly true of curse words. Many Spanish swear words and insults cover similar territory to their English counterparts. English speakers, on the other hand, might have a hard time understanding. Swear words. It's an art and science that can only be perfected with experience.

In this, the first of a three-volume study of Byrd's complete output, under the general title The Music of William Byrd, the author essays a first full-scale historical and critical assessment of Byrd's sacred music to Latin words - one of the great glories of the Elizabethan Age. Each of the approximately 175 compositions is considered, at least briefly, with fuller appreciation accorded to such masterpieces as Emendemus in Melius, Tristitia et anxietas, Iusorum animae, Ave verum corpus, the lamentations and the three famous masses. There are more than sixty musical examples, some of considerable length. In critical prose that slights neither technicalities nor the intense emotional qualities of his subject matter, the author sheds fresh and often unexpected illumination on Byrd's musical rhetoric and on his powerful, endlessly inventive musical structures. Re-examining the known facts of Byrd's life in relation to the patronage and politics of the time, the author boldly argues that while the impetus behind Byrd's early motets was primarily traditionalist and technical, that behind his Cantiones sacrae motets of the 1580s was essentially political: they were covert laments and protests on behalf of the embattled recusant community.