Shaggy Dogs And Black Sheep

Author : Albert Jack
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781981439256
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.50/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep written by Albert Jack and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-12-05 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Albert Jack's Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep is a compulsively readable, highly enlightening look at the phrases we use all the time but rarely consider. The English language is crammed with colourful phrases and sayings that we use without thinking every day. It's only when we're asked who smart Alec or Holy Moly were, where feeling 'in the pink' or 'once in a blue moon' come from, or even what letting the cat out of the bag really means that we realize that there's far more to English than we might have thought. Luckily enough, we now have Albert Jack. And rather than resting on his laurels after the enormous success of Red Herrings and White Elephants, he has continued his search around the world, exploring the origins of hundreds more phrases. The fascinating stories he has uncovered come from the rich traditions of the navy, army and law to confidence tricksters and highwaymen, from the practices of ancient civilizations to Music Hall and pubs. Determined to chase each shaggy dog story to the bitter end, his discoveries are even stranger and more memorable this time round. From the skin of your teeth to the graveyard shift - you'll never speak (or even think) English in the same way again. Albert Jack has become something of a publishing phenomenon, clocking up hundreds of thousands of sales with his series of bestselling adventures tracing the fantastic stories behind everyday phrases (Red Herrings and White Elephants), the world's great mysteries (Loch Ness Monsters and Raining Frogs) nursery rhymes (Pop Goes the Weasel) pub names (The Old Dog and Duck and food history (What Caesar did for My Salad

Author : Albert Jack
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781846148453
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep written by Albert Jack and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Albert Jack
Publisher : Perigee Trade
ISBN 13 : 9780399535123
Total Pages : 235 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Black Sheep and Lame Ducks written by Albert Jack and published by Perigee Trade. This book was released on 2010 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The follow-up to Red Herrings and White Elephants explains the history of the curious and bizarre origins of hundreds of idioms and expressions, including “wearing your heart on your sleeve” and a “black sheep in the family.”

Author : Albert Jack
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101162961
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Pop Goes the Weasel written by Albert Jack and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the international bestselling author of Red Herrings and White Elephants—a curious guide to the hidden histories of classic nursery rhymes. Who was Mary Quite Contrary, or Georgie Porgie? How could Hey Diddle Diddle offer an essential astronomy lesson? Do Jack and Jill actually represent the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette? And if Ring Around the Rosie isn’t about the plague, then what is it really about? This book is a quirky, curious, and sometimes sordid look at the truth behind popular nursery rhymes that uncovers the strange tales that inspired them—from Viking raids to political insurrection to smuggling slaves to freedom. Read Albert Jack's posts on the Penguin Blog.

Author : Albert Jack
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 014192991X
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Old Dog and Duck written by Albert Jack and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2009-09-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book for everyone who has ever wondered why pubs should be called The Cross Keys, The Dew Drop Inn or The Hope and Anchor. You'll be glad to know that there are very good - strange and memorable - reasons behind them all. After much research about (and in) pubs, Albert Jack brings together the stories behind pub names to reveal how they offer fascinating and subversive insights on our history, customs, attitudes and jokes in just the same way that nursery rhymes do. The Royal Oak, for instance, commemorates the tree that hid Charles II from Cromwell's forces after his defeat at Worcester; The Bag of Nails is a corruption of the Bacchanals, the crazed followers of Bacchus, the god of wine and drunkenness; The Cat and the Fiddle a mangling of Catherine La Fidele and a guarded gesture of support for Henry VIII's first, Catholic, wife Catherine of Aragon; plus many, many more. Here too are even more facts about everything from ghosts to drinking songs to the rules of cribbage and shove hapenny, showing that, ultimately, the story of pub history is really the story of our own popular history

Author : Albert Jack
Publisher : Metro Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1782192743
Total Pages : 119 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Red Herrings And White Elephants written by Albert Jack and published by Metro Publishing. This book was released on 2007-04-10 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever wondered what phrases such as 'square meal', 'load of old codswallop', 'egg on your face' or 'in the limelight' mean? Where do they come from? Have you ever taken a moment to wonder what we say actually means? The origins of hundreds of common phrases are explained in this irreverent journey through the most fascinating and richest regions of the English language. In a book that takes you all over the world, from nautical origins to food and drink terms, once you have learnt one phrase, you will be eager to learn them all! From the drop of a hat to the bitter end - you'll be surprised and intrigued and you'll never speak English in the same way again.

Author : Albert Jack
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1446456099
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.95/5 ( download)

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Download or read book It's a Wonderful Word written by Albert Jack and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-11-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did you know that an assassin is a hashish-eater and a yokel a country woodpecker? That Dr Mesmer mesmerised patients back to health or that Samuel Pepys enjoyed a good game of handicap? While we're at it, what have spondulics to do with spines or lawyers with avocados? In It's a Wonderful Word, bestselling author Albert Jack collects over 500 of the strangest, funniest-sounding and most delightful words in the English language, and traces them back to their often puzzling origins. While brushing up on your gibberish or gobbledygook, discover why bastards should resent travelling salesmen, why sheets should remain on tenterhooks and why you should never set down a tumbler before finishing your drink. From blotto to bamboozle and from claptrap to quango, Albert Jack's addictive anecdotes bring the world's most colourful language to life and are guaranteed to surprise and entertain.

Author : Albert Jack
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141903473
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Phantom Hitchhikers and Decoy Ducks written by Albert Jack and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-08-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Was Sir Winston Churchill really a Druid? Did Charlie Chaplin lose a lookalike competition? Did The Who's drummer Keith Moon drive his Rolls Royce into a swimming pool? The man with the answers is Albert Jack...' - Daily Express From Walt Disney's frozen head to the kidnap of JFK's brain, Albert Jack gathers together all the strangest, sickest, funniest and most unforgettable urban legends and recounts them with his usual deadpan humour. But this is more than just a collection of urban legends, it is also a detective story. Exploring the real events behind conspiracy theories, the exaggerations of history and the assumptions of old wives’ tales, Albert Jack shows us that the truth can definitely be stranger than fiction...

Author : Karen Tulloch
Publisher : SAGE
ISBN 13 : 0857257838
Total Pages : 201 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Primary English Across the Curriculum written by Karen Tulloch and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2012-06-25 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book supports trainee teachers working towards primary QTS in teaching primary English across all areas of the curriculum. Focused on teaching a more integrated and inclusive curriculum, this text draws out meaningful cross curriculur links and explores how the teaching of English can take place across the whole curriculum. It examines how a teacher′s effective use of English is essential in supporting learning in all subjects and considers the role of the teacher in promoting English. Chapters cover topics such as language, literature, EAL and thinking skills. Incorporating the latest thinking in primary English and including exemplars of current good practice, this practical guide encourages trainee teachers to explore learning and teachig in new ways. About the Transforming QTS Series This series reflects the new creative way schools are begining to teach, taking a fresh approach to supporting trainees as they work towards primary QTS. Titles provide full up to date resources focused on teaching a more integrated and inclusive curriculum, and texts draw out meaningful and explicit cross curricular links.

Author : Albert Jack
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1632202360
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book They Laughed at Galileo written by Albert Jack and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A humorous account of great inventors and their critics who predicted failure. They Laughed at Galileo takes a humorous and reflective look at one thousand years of the development of humankind: those who dreamt, those who taught, those who opposed, and those who, ultimately, did. At some point in modern history, each and every one of our inventions and discoveries was first envisioned and then developed by a single person, or a handful of people, who dreamt of the seemingly impossible. For them, the future was clear and obvious, but for the vast majority, including the acknowledged experts of their days, such belief was sheer folly. For just about everything that has improved our modern lifestyles in a way that our ancestors could not possibly imagine, there was once a lone dreamer proclaiming, “It can be done.” That dreamer was nearly always opposed by a team of “enlightened” contemporaries publicly declaring, “It cannot be done.” Well, yes it could. Marconi’s wireless radio transmissions were initially deemed pointless. Edward L. Drake’s eventual success on August 27, 1859, was called the day “the crazy man first struck oil.” Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs was considered a “ridiculous fiction.” Each of these inventions has had a profound effect on the course of human history, and each one was rejected, resisted, and ridiculed in its day. Ultimately, the innovators who brought these into existence provided invaluable contributions to science and the culture of humankind.