The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense
Language: English
Published by Free Press, 2002
- Softcover
- Used
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The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Seller Inventory # GOR008765184
- Title
- The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense
- Author
- Saul, John Ralston
- Publisher
- Free Press
- Publication year
- 2002
- Condition
- Very Good
- Binding
- Paperback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0743236602
- ISBN 13
- 9780743236607
- Item weight
- 531 grams
But as John Ralston Saul argues in this decidedly unorthodox book, modern dictionaries have once again been captured by the forces of orthodoxy—albeit this time a rationalist orthodoxy. Our language has become as predictable, fragmented, and rhetorical as it was in the 18th century, divided as it is by special interest groups into dialects of expertise that are hermetically sealed off and inaccessible to citizens. In The Doubter's Companion, a marvelous subversive contribution to the great 18th century tradition of the humanist dictionary, Saul skewers and discredits the accepted content of common terms like Advertising, Academics, and Air Conditioning (defined as "an efficient means for spreading disease in enclosed public spaces"); Cannibal, Conservative, and Croissant; Dandruff, Death, and Dictionary ("opinions presented as truth in alphabetical order"); and several hundred others, including Biography ("a respectable form of pornography"), Museum ("safe storage for stolen objects"), and Manners ("people are always splendid when they're dead").
There is much in this volume that will stimulate, offend, provoke, perplex, and entertain. But Saul deploys these tactics of guerilla lexicography to advance the more serious purpose of reclaiming public language from the stultifying dialects of modern expertise.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
His awards include South Korea's Manhae Grand Prize for Literature, the Pablo Neruda Medal, Canada's Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction, the inaugural Gutenberg Galaxy Award for Literature, and Italy's Premio Letterario Internazionale. He is a Companion in the Order of Canada and a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France. He is the recipient of seventeen honorary degrees.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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