Synonyms & Antonyms in The Books Store

One of the English language's most skilled and beloved writers guides us all toward precise, mistake-free usage.

As usual Bill Bryson says it best: "English is a dazzlingly idiosyncratic tongue, full of quirks and irregularities that often seem willfully at odds with logic and common sense. This is a language where 'cleave' can mean to cut in half or to hold two halves together; where the simple word 'set' has 126 different meanings as a verb, 58 as a noun, and 10 as a participial adjective; where if you can run fast you are moving swiftly, but if you are stuck fast you are not moving at all; [and] where 'colonel,' 'freight,' 'once,' and 'ache' are strikingly at odds with their spellings." As a copy editor for the London Times in the early 1980s, Bill Bryson felt keenly the lack of an easy-to-consult, authoritative guide to avoiding the traps and snares in English, and so he brashly suggested to a publisher that he should write one. Surprisingly, the proposition was accepted, and for "a sum of money carefully gauged not to cause embarrassment or feelings of overworth," he proceeded to write that book—his first, inaugurating his stellar career.

Now, a decade and a half later, revised, updated, and thoroughly (but not overly) Americanized, it has become Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, more than ever an essential guide to the wonderfully disordered thing that is the English language. With some one thousand entries, from "a, an" to "zoom," that feature real-world examples of questionable usage from an international array of publications, and with a helpful glossary and guide to pronunciation, this precise, prescriptive, and—because it is written by Bill Bryson—often witty book belongs on the desk of every person who cares enough about the language not to maul or misuse or distort it.

An abridged edition of the world's bestselling original thesaurus. This completely revised and updated edition contains over 230,000 words, nearly three thousand of which are newly added.

The revolutionary achievement of Dr Roget was his development of a brand new principle: the grouping of words according to ideas. If the user cannot find something in a reference book, it is often because of the restriction of searching alphabetically by 'known' headwords. Dr Roget's thesaurus reversed the access to allow the user to find a word from another word, a concept or an idea.

This ultimate reference tool – the best–selling thesaurus ever in all its editions – contains over 230,000 words and phrases, nearly 3000 of which are new to this edition, grouped into 1072 numbered categories. Within each category you'll find all the parts of speech, frequent cross–references, commonly used words singled out in boldface, and much more. If you're a writer who needs help organising a thought or mastering the nuance of expression, the International Thesaurus remains the first source to turn to.