Brave new books -Re-read shows the lead

At Re-Read you’ll discover second-hand books in perfect condition.
You can also sell yours.
Because there are always read books and books to read.
That’s why we Re-buy and we Re-sell, so you never run out of either

What kind of Re-Reader are you?

The bookshop is divided into sections and themes: what Re-Reader are you from the following categories?

• Passionat
• Curious
• Saver
• Emotive
• Enthousiast
• Sweet tooth
• Shy

 two books   5€

Five books  10€

Re-Give Books – Re-Read ‘s Charity project

 BARCELONA:

Gran vía 564 - 

C. Rosselló, 158 –

C. Londres, 7 - 

C. Muntaner, 337 –

Pg Sant Joan, 152 –

 L’Hospitalet: C. Progres, 124 –  
  Mataró:Plaça Cuba, 19  SABADELL (coming soon): Carrer de Calderón, 16
 TERRASSA (coming soon): Rambla Egara, 223  ST: CUGAT  (coming soon):C. Major , 7

GIRONA:  C. de les Ballesteries, 4

The univers of meaning -etymologie -etym-word origin-

The origin of words is often  " a red herring"  as it is possibly misleading, or based on non historical sources, etc.

Having said that, nothing works better for an understanding of the etymology that the annex at the mathematician and philosopher, Samuel Reiss, who in a quite unknown book expressed the uphill strugle to find the origen of meaning, beyond the corpse of words themselves.  Samuel Reiss: The universe of meaning.  

New York, Philosophical Library, 1953. 227 pp. ( P F Strawson's review.) 

Some of his works,  here.

Today, a couple of books:

     Dirty Words    
Mad hatter . . . pie in the sky . . . egg on your face. We use these phrases every day, yet how many of us know what they really mean or where they came from?

From bringing home the bacon to leaving no stone unturned, the English language is peppered with hundreds of common idioms borrowed from ancient traditions and civilizations throughout the world. InRed Herrings and White Elephants, Albert Jack has uncovered the amazing and sometimes downright bizarre stories behind many of our most familiar and eccentric modes of expression:

A delightful compendium of anecdotes on everything from minding your p's and q's to pulling out all the stops, Red Herrings and White Elephants is an essential handbook for language-lovers of all ages.

Patrick Carroll reviews Dirty Words:Even if the conclusions that Jack comes to are not the end all be all, they certainly do entertain and give food for thought. In many ways, the book is like a cultural history of England as well. I learned about as much about the idioms as I did about the lives of everyday people throughout the history of the British Isles.

Red Herrings and White Elephants







What flower takes its name from the human testicle? Is your husband rantallion? Does your wife sport a merkin? What's a wittol, and why were they once drummed out of town while sitting backwards on a horse? Is sacofricosis a crime, a disease or an hors d'oeuvre? Morton roams through centuries of etymological lore to explain the origins of the language of love and sex. It is the perfect book for language-lovers and lovers alike.

Albert Jack reports:  

Tracing the phrases to their origins is hard work but Jack's effort revealed that most of them originated from interesting, if not unexpected, sources. Not all of the provided sources and origins are clear since most of them have evolved over the years, with their roots lost in time. In cases which the root is ambiguous, the author is nice enough to mention that, bringing up the most plausible, and in some cases the funniest, origin which he thought most likely.

It is interesting to note that most of the sayings do not even originate from the English language, and are cobbled up from Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Greek, French, Swedish, Norse (when it's raining cats and dogs or when someone went berserk), Hindustani (when someone has gone Doolally), Jewish (when you tell someone to eat his heart out) and even Gaelic (when you declared something as phoney), just to name a few.

The sources are as varied as well, with some coming from famous stories such Aesop's fables, Greek and Roman legends, and even from the Bible. 

reading and sharing ideas -Sketches-Mitchell and Webb

Transcripts 

Play the dialogue:

 

Can I just take this out?

(No.)

Oh — and can I reserve Cold Mountain?

No.

Pardon?

I said, "No". I'm not going to reserve that for you. This is far more appropriate for you.

Well, I know it's silly. I just thought I'd read some...

God-awful rubbish like you always do? Yeah, I'd steer clear of Cold Mountain if I were you. It's not like when you watched it on DVD with your "girlfriends". There's no dishy Jude Law to hold your hands through the difficult prose.

What?

Yes, it's all words. Most of them quite a lot longer than the ones you'd find in your copy of Top Santé or Gratzia.

Look at that. It's a comprehensive list of all the depressing books you've ever taken out. Do you know what that tells me?

No.

It tells me you are possibly the dullest, most dunderheaded female ever to scrape together the mental where-withal correctly to fill in a library application form. Did you have help?

Did I what!?

Shhhh! This is a library.

Just look at it. It's like the reading list of the University of Thick.

I went to Warwick.

When you talk to people, do you find they do this a lot? "Uh-huh, yeah, fine, un-huh, yeah, Mmmmm."

Full script at  this page. 

TASKS. 
Now, try to offer a good book selection to these two people: 
1- a Brain surgeon 
2- a Rocket scientist

The Insulting Librarian - Mitchell & Webb

The Middle kingdom speaks the truth thru easy Chineasy, have a go

When in doubt, to orientate ....go EAST.

To the Middle Kingdom.

Where is the center?

   an 18th century copy of a 1418 map 

INTRO: 
Eat, Drink, Man, Woman -Taiwan, 1994,
 Dir. Ang Lee, 109 Min.

The father in the film provides this definition of a family: 

"All under one roof, leading separate lives,

still we worry for each other.

This worry, that's what makes us a family …”

The ‘family’ word in Chinese jia gets the radical for pig on the left and everything under one roof. This character is shared by the Korean and Japanese neighbours.

    Chineasy    

The Vision

It is evident that people are hungry to learn about China. People are keen to be able to communicate with the 1.3 billion people. Yet there is not much out there to enable them to do so.
Whilst the entire Chinese population is learning English, it is time for us to really comprehend this complex economy and society with our own eyes and judgment. Knowing their language is the first baby step but a crucial one.

The real agenda behind this project is to bridge the gap between the East and the West. 

I want to give the West a real understand and knowledge so that people can understand China and appreciate Chinese culture via their own eyes rather than layers of packaging, manipulation or loss in translation.