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Over the centuries, English words have drifted from their original purposes and acquired vastly different meanings. Consider the word "bad," which today means "great." Or "tryst," now a romantic liaison, in the England of 500 years ago meant "a fair for black cattle, horses, and sheep." Author Jeffrey Kacirk, a man intrigued by words, has sifted through mountains of discarded meanings to arrive at the almost 1,500 entries in this fascinating romp through the ever-changing world of lexicography. His goal is to "leave the reader with a sense of where many modern usages may have come from, or in some cases, have strayed". Study the altered meanings in this fun book and you'll be able to "razzle-dazzle" (originally, a daylong drinking bout) your friends and acquaintances. Kacirk has collected current words and provided earlier definitions and their sources alphabetically, beginning with abandon ('to banish, to drive away' --John Phin, 1902) and ending with a zig-zag ('drunk' --Edward Fraser and John Gibbons, 1925). Kacirk's book is a flip-through find, perfect for everyone from lay word nerds to top-dollar scholars.
British history, particularly British Imperial history, includes the movement of people from Britain to other parts of the world. For many this was a move as emigrants seeking a new life in another country. From about 1830 there was considerable interest in emigration to the Australian colonies, supported for the first time by various British government and colonial programs of assisted passage. The passage to the Australian colonies involved travelling half way around the world. For over ninety percent of emigrants this necessitated passage in a small wooden square-rigged sailing vessel beneath the deck as steerage class passengers, where conditions were rudimentary, crowded, noisy, smelly, damp and lacked privacy. This book tells the story of a passage by some 260 emigrants to colonial South Australia in 1850 on board a square-rigged vessel called the Stag. It incorporates the transcribed diary of one of the steerage class passengers Francis C Taylor and gives a vivid insight into shipboard life on the long and difficult passage.
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