This miniature edition includes 1,400 of the most common forbidden expressions in contemporary American English. This handy reference is a reduced-format edition of Forbidden American English.

Learning everyday expressions is now more convenient for non-native speakers of English thanks to these pocket-size dictionaries. Each is a compact, yet complete and up-to-date, reprint of one of NTC's top-selling ESL titles.

"Described as 'one of the most vulgar forms of barbarism, ' by Rep. John Kasson (R-IA) in 1882, a series of laws passed by the United States Congress between 1879 and 1943 resulted in prohibiting the Chinese as a people from becoming U.S. citizens. Forbidden citizens recounts this long and shameful legislative history"--Page 4 of cover.

Forbidden Signs explores American culture from the mid-nineteenth century to 1920 through the lens of one striking episode: the campaign led by Alexander Graham Bell and other prominent Americans to suppress the use of sign language among deaf people. The ensuing debate over sign language invoked such fundamental questions as what distinguished Americans from non-Americans, civilized people from "savages," humans from animals, men from women, the natural from the unnatural, and the normal from the abnormal. An advocate of the return to sign language, Baynton found that although the grounds of the debate have shifted, educators still base decisions on many of the same metaphors and images that led to the misguided efforts to eradicate sign language. "Baynton's brilliant and detailed history, Forbidden Signs, reminds us that debates over the use of dialects or languages are really the linguistic tip of a mostly submerged argument about power, social control, nationalism, who has the right to speak and who has the right to control modes of speech."—Lennard J. Davis, The Nation "Forbidden Signs is replete with good things."—Hugh Kenner, New York Times Book Review

On the planet OtherWorld, Tara’s friend Cal is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, and she and her friends set out to prove him innocent. It’s an unlikely crew: Tara, the riddle-loving Fabrice, Robin the half-elf, Sparrow the shape-shifting princess, and Tara’s cultured grandfather—and black Lab—Manitou. Blue gnomes help Cal break out of prison, but at a terrible price. To force him to help liberate their people from an evil wizard, they infect Cal with a time-release poison that Tara and her friends must race to neutralize. Helped by Fafnir the dwarf, they defeat the wizard and travel to Demonic Limbo for evidence of Cal’s innocence. There, Tara has a wrenching encounter with the ghost of her dead father. Back on OtherWorld, the situation is grim. Fafnir accidentally releases the terrible Devourer of Souls, who nearly conquers the planet. In desperation, Tara changes into a dragon and allies herself with her nemesis, Magister. They defeat the Devourer, and Tara hurls Magister into Limbo, hopefully forever. Meanwhile, the Empress of Omois has discovered that Tara is her niece and heir. She insists that Tara come live on OtherWorld for good. If Tara refuses, it will mean war. This is the exciting sequel to Tara Duncan and the Spellbinders and is sure to captivate young readers for hours of excitement and adventure!

Many words and expressions are viewed as 'taboo', such as those used to describe sex, our bodies and their functions, and those used to insult other people. This 2006 book provides a fascinating insight into taboo language and its role in everyday life. It looks at the ways we use language to be polite or impolite, politically correct or offensive, depending on whether we are 'sweet-talking', 'straight-talking' or being deliberately rude. Using a range of colourful examples, it shows how we use language playfully and figuratively in order to swear, to insult, and also to be politically correct, and what our motivations are for doing so. It goes on to examine the differences between institutionalized censorship and the ways individuals censor their own language. Lively and revealing, Forbidden Words will fascinate anyone who is interested in how and why we use and avoid taboos in daily conversation.

The spellbinding epic adventure of a time when mankind took its first steps and the icy wilds claimed the earth. Breathtaking, vivid, unforgettable—here is the third volume of the panoramic new series The First Americans which began with Beyond The Sea Of Ice and continued with Corridor Of Storms. In this untamed prehistoric time, the great hunter Torka has led a group of survivors across a frozen sea. Now he is their proud headman, a leader who defies the old ways. For this, the will of the tribe turns against him—and he must act quickly to save his children from those who would see them killed. Together with his family and a small band of faithful followers, Torka and his wife Lonit strike out a dangerous journey to an unknown land feared by all men . . . the forbidden land. With supreme courage they will struggle against its savagery, its strange creatures and ancient mystical beliefs to build a future worthy of a noble people . . . worthy of Americans.

When Carson Reynolds gets hired to produce a documentary film at a gathering of Native American medicine men, he never suspects it will be a portal into a world that will radically change his life. Despite his resistance to the Call, he is ineluctably drawn into a realm of shamans, priestesses, deities, and plant-medicine work, where he becomes engaged in a searing struggle with extra-dimensional forces that threaten the future of humanity as we know it.

Description: This book is about a Black man's reading of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the first time while in graduate school. The story captures his emotional experience with Twain's use of the racial epithet "nigger" more than 211 times throughout the book. The visceral response to hearing the word verbalized by whites with Twain's permission, regardless of irony or satire, is a central theme of this personal history/memoir. The situation is a seminar in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, where the Civil War is still being fought on many levels. The story is the complication of race as a topic of public discussion and the role the word nigger plays in postmodern society especially among Blacks and Hip-Hop music. The use of the word is a sign of evil both historically and culturally and cannot be flipped in a way that erases its history and meaning. It is also a reflection on language and culture. Endorsements: "Harris has written a courageous memoir that confronts the long debate over Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the use of the n-word. Marshaling critics from Hegel to bell hooks, and calling on a family history of resistance, Harris challenges his instructor and classmates, and in turn inspires his readers to redress the long history of American racism and white supremacy bound up with the epithet." --Mark Sanders, Professor of English, Emory University "Harris combines the passion and power of personal experience with a masterful display of historical and literary criticism, and the finished product is a book that goes beyond Twain's painfully derogatory stereotypes, racial epithets, and the persistent myths to expose race as the enduring and central dilemma of the American experience. In compelling terms, Harris helps us understand why our claims of 'a post-racial society' remain open to serious question and debate." --Lewis V. Baldwin, Professor of Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University "The Forbidden Word is an elegant, heartfelt rumination on America's crucible of race. Engaging, beautifully crafted, and analytically powerful, it masterfully employs Twain's Huck Finn as both a literal and figurative representation of the nation's never-ending racial drama. By blending the narrative voice of a memoirist and the sharp insights of a true scholar, Harris achieves a remarkable literary triumph." --Tim Wise, author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son