The Superior Person's Field Guide to Deceitful, Deceptive & Downright Dangerous Language

(Hardback)

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The Superior Person's Field Guide is a call for the return to simple, straightforward words that say what they mean and mean what they say. Most of us know that 'downsizing' means that you're about to be fired, but have you ever heard its business-speak cousins 'offshoreable' or 'cash-flow episode' With his customary wit and clear-sightedness, Peter Bowler cuts a swath through the thickets of popular jargon, casting daylight on such linguistic deformities as 'interrogate with prejudice' (that is, torture) and 'unforeseen geological event' (a mining disaster). Impatient with euphemism, he examines ugly specimens forced into bloom in the interests of political correctness - 'waitperson', 'developmentally challenged' - designed to help the squeamish avoid direct confrontation with the simple facts of sex and disability. Here are circumlocutions that make the disagreeable seem agreeable, the unacceptable acceptable, and here is Peter Bowler, as always, trying to set the record, and the English language, straight.

Reviews

A lexicon devoid of practical value but replete with entertaining possibilities. ... Not for the faint of wit.