- Paperback: 152 pages
- Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc; illustrated edition edition (29 May 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1402208855
- ISBN-13: 978-1402208850
- Product Dimensions: 18.1 x 13.5 x 1.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 173,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Very Nice Ways to Say Very Bad Things
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Product Description
Product Description
Welcome to a world of truly polite ways to say the worst. Euphemisms serve a greater purpose than merely keeping the ladies at a garden party from glaring at us over the top of their spectacles. A few mincing words can also keep lawyers at bay. This subtle art of the insult can exact revenge without fear of retribution. Very Nice Ways to Say Very Bad Things is also chock full of obsure facts about common terms. It will be impossible for readers to find a page that doesn't enlighten or delight.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book was a great disappointment. I ordered it as a gift to a person who enjoys the English language, and witty, quirky ways to express things. However, the book was such a disappoinment that I couldn't give it as a present - it ended up as toilet reading, and that only because I couldn't bring byself to throw out a completely new book. If there were negative stars as rating I would give it 5, it actually annoys me that I have to give it the minimum one star.
Most of the content seems like it would have been googled - try to search on "poo" and see how many really amusing hits you get. List the most obvious ones. Then look up the same word in a thesaurus, and list some synonymes of the word. Then see if you find a Latin word for it, to add a touch of pseudo-intellectualism. After that, if you can find one, top it up with a quote of Shakespeare.
For this book to be amusing you have to have the sense of humour of a 3 year old, and very little literary experience. You can test if this book is for you, simply by seeing if you laughed out loud when reading the word "poo" before. If it had you rolling in convulsive fits of laughter this book is for you.
I believe the only rationale for the existence of this book is a publisher thinking of a name that sells online, and then finding someone to google up some pseudo-content for it. This book would never sell a copy if you'd be able to actually have a peek of the content. (Except if you just fell over again, as "peek" sounded almost like "pee" - then you migh buy one, if its on bargain sale)
Most of the content seems like it would have been googled - try to search on "poo" and see how many really amusing hits you get. List the most obvious ones. Then look up the same word in a thesaurus, and list some synonymes of the word. Then see if you find a Latin word for it, to add a touch of pseudo-intellectualism. After that, if you can find one, top it up with a quote of Shakespeare.
For this book to be amusing you have to have the sense of humour of a 3 year old, and very little literary experience. You can test if this book is for you, simply by seeing if you laughed out loud when reading the word "poo" before. If it had you rolling in convulsive fits of laughter this book is for you.
I believe the only rationale for the existence of this book is a publisher thinking of a name that sells online, and then finding someone to google up some pseudo-content for it. This book would never sell a copy if you'd be able to actually have a peek of the content. (Except if you just fell over again, as "peek" sounded almost like "pee" - then you migh buy one, if its on bargain sale)
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Berdoll has put together a pretty sweet book of euphemisms here and everyone who either has an interest in English as a language, or is just after a bit of a laugh is likely to highly appreciate this book. In some sense it feels as if it were something put together by Stephen Fry (I mean this in a very positive way), Berdoll does an excellent job of glorifying the richness and colour of the English language, focusing on the slightly ruder aspects.
Some of the expressions are laugh out loud funny, others a bit obscure but still relatively interesting or thought provoking. At any rate, being up to speed with the expressions collected by Berdoll is a great way of fitting in, if you ever expect to find yourself living in the UK (I imagine most would be funny but not directly applicable for American English).
This makes for a very good present, in some ways just as much for yourself as for others - it would be a right shame to miss it!
Some of the expressions are laugh out loud funny, others a bit obscure but still relatively interesting or thought provoking. At any rate, being up to speed with the expressions collected by Berdoll is a great way of fitting in, if you ever expect to find yourself living in the UK (I imagine most would be funny but not directly applicable for American English).
This makes for a very good present, in some ways just as much for yourself as for others - it would be a right shame to miss it!
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Thoroughly enjoyable very funny and very informative. I even tried these out on some of my friends to see if they understood what I meant. They all thought the quotes very clever but highly hilarious.
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