A collection of unabashed sayings by Harry Truman is accompanied by hundreds of personal anecdotes, as well as excerpts from his diaries, letters, speeches, and press conferences.

The Wit & Wisdom of Harry Truman: A Treasury of Quotations, Anecdotes, and Observations

Keyes, Ralph

TRUMAN, Harry S.

Reference

Harpercollins

A collection of quotations and excerpts from conversations offers a glimpse into the nineteenth-century English author's views on reason, human nature, age, conformity, art, clothing, and his own work

The Wit & Wisdom of Oscar Wilde: A Treasury of Quotations, Anecdotes, and Repartee

Literature & Fiction

Wilde, Óscar

History & Criticism

We, the lonely people;: Searching for community

Harper&Row

Leo Durocher is best remembered for saying, "Nice guys finish last." He never said it. What the Brooklyn Dodgers' manager did say, before a 1946 game with the New York Giants, was: "The nice guys are all over there. This is just one of hundreds of misquotations that Ralph Keyes dissects in this informative and entertaining book. Keyes discovered that "The opera ain't over 'til the fat lady sings," comes from an older saying: "Church ain't out 'til the fat lady sings." He determined that Winston Churchill did not originate the phrase "iron curtain," and never said, "blood, sweat and tears." Keyes also confirmed that "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing," was the slogan of UCLA coach Red Sanders, not Vince Lombardi. According to him such words voice observations we want made. Freud may never have said "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," for example, but we certainly wish he had. Keyes calls this "the flypaper effect." Orphan quotes or comments by unknowns routinely gravitate to noted figures such as Churchill, Lincoln, or Twain. Other syndromes Keyes discusses include bumper stickering (condensing a long comment to make it more quotable), lip syncing (mouthing someone else's words as if they were your own), and retro-quoting (putting words in the mouths of famous dead people). "Nice Guys Finish Seventh" is a fascinating, eye-opening book. It's both fun to read and a reliable work of reference.

Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations

Business & Money

Education & Reference

Successful word-coinages - those that stay in currency for a good long time - tend to conceal their beginnings. We take them at face value and rarely when and where they were first minted. Engaging, illuminating, and authoritative, Ralph Keyes's The Hidden History of Coined Words explores theetymological underworld of terms and expressions and uncovers plenty of hidden gems.He also finds some fascinating patterns, such as that successful neologisms are as likely to be created by chance as by design. A remarkable number of new words were coined whimsically, originally intended to troll or taunt. Knickers, for example, resulted from a hoax; big bang from an insult.Casual wisecracking produced software, crowdsource, and blog. More than a few resulted from happy accidents, such as typos, mistranslations, and mishearing (bigly and buttonhole), or from being taken entirely out of context (robotics). Neologizers (a Thomas Jefferson coinage) include not justscholars and writers but cartoonists, columnists, children's book authors. Wimp originated with a book series, as did goop, and nerd from a book by Dr. Seuss. Coinages are often contested, controversy swirling around such terms as gonzo, mojo, and booty call. Keyes considers all contenders, whilealso leading us through the fray between new word partisans, and those who resist them strenuously. He concludes with advice about how to make your own successful coinage.The Hidden History of Coined Words will appeal not just to word mavens but history buffs, trivia contesters, and anyone who loves the immersive power of language.

The Hidden History of Coined Words

Words, Language & Grammar

Oxford University Press

"Dishonesty inspires more euphemisms than copulation or defecation. This helps desensitize us to its implications. In the post-truth era we don't just have truth and lies but a third category of ambiguous statements that are not exactly the truth but fall just short of a lie. Enhanced truth it might be called. Neo-truth. Soft truth. Faux truth. Truth lite." Deception has become the modern way of life. Where once the boundary line between truth and lies was clear and distinct, it is no longer so. In the post-truth era, deceiving others has become a challenge, a game, a habit. High-profile dissemblers compete for news coverage, from journalists like Jayson Blair and professors like Joseph Ellis to politicians (of all stripes), executives, and "creative" accountants. Research suggests that the average American tells multiple lies on a daily basis, often for no good reason. Not a finger-wagging scolding, The Post-Truth Era is a combination of Ralph Keyes's investigative journalism and solid science. The result is a spirited exploration of why we lie about practically everything and the consequences such casual dishonesty has on society. American society has become permeated from top to bottom by deception. Its consequences for the nature of public discourse, media, business, literature, academia, and politics are profound. With dry humor, passionate fervor, and deep understanding, Ralph Keyes takes us on a tour of a world where truth and honesty are no longer absolutes but mutable, fluid concepts.

The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

St.Martin's Press

Our language is full of hundreds of quotations that are often cited but seldom confirmed. Ralph Keyes's The Quote Verifier considers not only classic misquotes such as "Nice guys finish last," and "Play it again, Sam," but more surprising ones such as "Ain't I a woman?" and "Golf is a good walk spoiled," as well as the origins of popular sayings such as "The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings," "No one washes a rented car," and "Make my day." Keyes's in-depth research routinely confounds widespread assumptions about who said what, where, and when. Organized in easy-to-access dictionary form, The Quote Verifier also contains special sections highlighting commonly misquoted people and genres, such as Yogi Berra and Oscar Wilde, famous last words, and misremembered movie lines. An invaluable resource for not just those with a professional need to quote accurately, but anyone at all who is interested in the roots of words and phrases, The Quote Verifier is not only a fascinating piece of literary sleuthing, but also a great read.

The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When

Quotations

St. Martin's: Griffin

An entertaining and informative book about the fashion and fads of language Today’s 18-year-olds may not know who Mrs. Robinson is, where the term “stuck in a groove” comes from, why 1984 was a year unlike any other, how big a bread box is, how to get to Peyton Place, or what the term Watergate refers to. I Love It When You Talk Retro discusses these verbal fossils that remain embedded in our national conversation long after the topic they refer to has galloped off into the sunset. That could be a person (Mrs. Robinson), product (Edsel), past bestseller (Catch-22), radio or TV show (Gangbusters), comic strip (Alphonse and Gaston), or advertisement (Where’s the beef?) long forgotten. Such retroterms are words or phrases in current use whose origins lie in our past. Ralph Keyes takes us on an illuminating and engaging tour through the phenomenon that is Retrotalk—a journey, oftentimes along the timelines of American history and the faultlines of culture, that will add to the word-lover’s store of trivia and obscure references. "The phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” is a mystery to young people today, as is “45rpm.” Even older folks don’t know the origins of “raked over the coals” and “cut to the chase.” Keyes (The Quote Verifier) uses his skill as a sleuth of sources to track what he calls “retrotalk”: “a slippery slope of puzzling allusions to past phenomena.” He surveys the origins of “verbal fossils” from commercials (Kodak moment), jurisprudence (Twinkie defense), movies (pod people), cartoons (Caspar Milquetoast) and literature (brave new world). Some pop permutations percolated over decades: Radio’s Take It or Leave It spawned a catch phrase so popular the program was retitled The $64 Question and later returned as TV’s The $64,000 Question. Keyes’s own book Is There Life After High School? became both a Broadway musical and a catch phrase. Some entries are self-evident or have speculative origins, but Keyes’s nonacademic style and probing research make this both an entertaining read and a valuable reference work." --Publishers Weekly

I Love It When You Talk Retro: Hoochie Coochie, Double Whammy, Drop a Dime, and the Forgotten Origins of American Speech

Today's eighteen-year-olds may not know who Mrs. Robinson is, the size of a breadbox, or why going postal refers to a major uproar. Such "retroterms" are words or phrases whose origin lies in our past. I Love It When You Talk Retro discusses these verbal fossils that linger in our national conversation long after the topic they refer to has galloped into the sunset. That could be a person (Charles Ponzi), product (Edsel), radio show (Gang Busters), or ad slogan ("Cha-ching!"). How many realize that cooties was World War I slang for lice, or that doofus came from the comic strip Popeye? Ralph Keyes takes us on an illuminating and engaging tour through what he calls retrotalk. This journey along the highways of history and byways of culture is an invaluable handbook for anyone who's ever wondered about an obscure word or phrase, "I wonder where that came from?" Ralph Keyes's book answers that question. Repeatedly. And is a lot of fun to read.

How did die become kick the bucket, underwear become unmentionables, and having an affair become hiking the Appalachian trail? Originally used to avoid blasphemy, honor taboos, and make nice, euphemisms have become embedded in the fabric of our language. Euphemania traces the origins of euphemisms from a tool of the church to a form of gentility to today's instrument of commercial, political, and postmodern doublespeak. As much social commentary as a book for word lovers, Euphemania is a lively and thought-provoking look at the power of words and our power over them.

Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Little, Brown Spark

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Keyes, Ralph. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Keyes, Ralph

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Keyes, Ralph. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Wit & Wisdom of Harry Truman: A Treasury of Quotations, Anecdotes, and Observations

The Wit & Wisdom of Oscar Wilde: A Treasury of Quotations, Anecdotes, and Repartee

We, the lonely people;: Searching for community

Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations

The Hidden History of Coined Words

The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life

The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When

I Love It When You Talk Retro: Hoochie Coochie, Double Whammy, Drop a Dime, and the Forgotten Origins of American Speech

I Love It When You Talk Retro: Hoochie Coochie, Double Whammy, Drop a Dime, and the Forgotten Origins of American Speech

Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms