Essays on women, men, gender roles and humor as social critique.

Does the Queen hold a drivers license and did she pass a test? What happens to the hundreds of boxes of chocolate people send Her Majesty on her birthday? These questions and more are answered in a practical miscellany of the royal family. Interest in the royal family is inexhaustible—people are curious about what they wear, drink, and do. This perfect companion to the royals' never-ending soap opera reveals all, from where the best places are to go to see the royal family to such details of tradition as the correct days and hours when it is permitted to fly a flag above Buckingham Palace. Including fascinating facts on abdication, birthdays, Christmas, dining, equerries, fashion, garden parties, hairdressers, insignia, the Jewel House, Kensington Palace, liveries, maids of honor, nannies, orbs, protection squads, the Queen’s piper, racing, Snowdon, tartans, the Union Jack, Queen Victoria, weddings, the x-ray machine at Buckingham Palace, yachts, and Zara Phillips, this is an unstoppable, unbeatable little guide to the British monarchy.

Pronunciation governs our regional and social identity more powerfully than any other aspect of spoken language. No wonder, then, that it has attracted most attention from satirists. In this intriguing book, David Crystal shows how our feelings about pronunciation today have their origins in the way our Victorian predecessors thought about the subject, as revealed in the pages of the satirical magazine, Punch.In the sixty years between its first issue in 1841 and the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, jokes about the fashions affecting English usage provide one of Punch's most fruitful veins of humour, from the dropped aitches of the Cockney accent to the upper-class habit of dropping the final 'g' (huntin' and fishin'). For 'We Are Not Amused', David Crystal has examined all the issues during the reign of Queen Victoria and brought together the cartoons and articles that poked fun at the subject of pronunciation, adding a commentary on the context of the times, explaining why people felt so strongly about accents, and identifying which accents were the main source of jokes. The collection brings to light a society where class distinction ruled, and where the way you pronounced a word was seen as a sometimes damning index of who you were and how you should be treated. It is a fascinating, provocative and highly entertaining insight into our on-going amusement at the subject of how we speak.

Placing failed humor within the broader category of miscommunication and drawing on a range of conversational data, this text represents the first comprehensive study of failed humor. It provides a framework for classifying the types of failure that can occur, examines the strategies used by both speakers and hearers to avoid and manage failure, and highlights the crucial role humor plays in social identity and relationship management.

Biblical humor about women and gender remains elusive for many readers, for its recognition may imply the realization that it's a cruel and disrespectful humor, ridicule rather than good-natured fun. But viewing humor as social critique, as is largely done in the essays in this volume, with respect to both the texts read and their actual or implied author, may be fun as well as significant for understanding the biblical worlds. As most of the essays show, writing about women is writing about men as well. In other words, it is writing about gender roles. The critique of women, womanhood and femaleness implied by biblical and related texts serves, in equal measure, as a critique of men, manhood and maleness in the texts, of the texts authors, and of the texts' commentators and readers. Contributors include Scott Spencer, Mary Shields, Kathleen O'Connor, Toni Craven, Kathy Williams, Athalya Brenner, Gale Yee, Amy-Jill Levine, and Esther Fuchs.

Examines the effects of television culture on how we conduct our public affairs and how "entertainment values" corrupt the way we think.

What if the ghosts of history's most notable and notorious figures assembled in an epic struggle for the future of all mankind? In Ghosts of the Abbey, a demon lurks in the Tower of London, preparing his evil army to destroy all mortal life and reclaim control of heaven and hell. All he needs is a key to the afterworld. Join the race for this relic as famous spirits who now reside at Westminster Abbey team up with two unsuspecting mortal boys, a pair of ethereal princes trapped in the tower, and a whole host of unlikely apparitions in an effort to protect humanity from the impending darkness. In Ghosts of the Abbey, you'll encounter history, humor, horror, and a rollicking adventure across time and the boundaries between good and evil.

What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever. "It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman.” -CNN Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals. “A brilliant, powerful, and important book. This is an indictment that Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one.” –Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World

Ever wished there was a book about some of the weirdest and most disturbing stories in the Bible that was also hilarious to read? You've found it. It turns out, there's a lot of strange stuff in the Bible, and this book takes a tongue-in-cheek look at all of it. Approximately 80 percent of Americans admit they haven't read the Bible. If they did, they'd be pleasantly surprised by its impressive quantity of sex and poop jokes. David danced naked. Noah was basically a moonshining hillbilly. Ezekiel baked poop bread. Herod was eaten by worms. Jesus cursed a fig tree, just to prove he could. Mark went streaking. Hosea married a prostitute. Lot was date-raped by his own daughters. This unique book: Combines humor and education to give better insight into some of the strangest parts of the Bible Organized by topic (poop, genitalia, weird violence, prostitution, gratuitous nudity, seemingly pointless miracles, and other fun stuff) Is a thoroughly researched (really!), reverent, and insightful look at the best-selling book in history Makes a perfect gift for pastors and white elephant parties From Elisha, who loosed homicidal bears on some kids because they called him bald (it's a long story), to the story of Ehud, who gets away with assassinating a tyrannical king because his servants think said king is taking a dump (also a long story), this book examines and casts new light on some of the Bible's stranger moments.