I'm what you might call a collector of languages. I like to study languages of various sorts, not necessarily to become fluent in them, but simply to learn about them and think about them. Latin is certainly one of the more interesting languages to study, if not because one finds it fascinating in itself (which I do), then because it has influenced modern languages so much.

Veni, Vidi, Vici is a great book to open to a random page and read for a few minutes. And it's rather amusing to throw around Latin phrases such as "Mars gravior sub pace lacet" ("a more serious war lies hidden in peace") to see how people react.

Whether or not you are interested in actually learning Latin, this is a very interesting and fun book to read. If nothing else, it can get your mind thinking about just how pervasive Latin roots are in the language we speak today. If you are a fellow helluo librorum ("devourer of books"), you will definitely like Veni, Vidi, Vici.

Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ullis Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ullis et rident stolidi verba Latina.

When I got this book, it was when I needed to say something in Latin to impress a few friends and teachers. This is a very good book, tells you almost every Latin saying you'll ever need as well as being ordered very nicely. The index is also very good and I think this book gives good detail without going too far. Great book and also a nice way to annoy some people when you don't like them.

Let's play vocabulary catch-up: The word "ketchup" is as American as burgers and fries, right? Wrong! The word is actually derived from the Chinese word "ke-jap," which means "fish sauce." In this fascinating volume, renowned linguist Eugene Ehrlich takes us on an eye-opening (and sometimes jaw-dropping) tour of how Americans have taken words from other languages and used them as our own. Kitsch? It's German, and means "trash." Ukulele? It's Hawaiian, and means (literally) "leaping flea." High muck-a-muck? It's Chinook and means "plenty to eat." The book is plenty of fun.

I loved this book!!!! I had this problem. I had ketchup on my muumuu and I didn't know what to do about it. So, I looked up "you've got ketchup on your muumuu.com" on the internet and I found this wonderful, lifesaving book!!! It was exactly what I needed. I discovered how to classify the ketchup by tomato content and acidity. Armed with this information, I was then equipped to deal with my ketchup/muumuu situation. I then took the book and rubbed it vigourously back and forth against my muumuu. This served to create a significant source of friction which heated my muumuu up to a point where the ketchup began to slide off. My muumuu was painful for weeks but at least the ketchup was removed. Oh my, thank you, thank you, Eugene Erlich, Eugene Enrlich!!! You've saved my life!!!!

I enjoyed this book for many reasons. Number one, the title alone is enough to make you want to buy it. How can you resist? I write every day (newspaper) and it helps to have a book like this. I am always looking for creative ways to express myself and this is what this does for you. I find it even more helpful that he supplies a guide for pronunciation so I don't have to sound like an idiot if I want to use one of these words in a conversation.

A practical little book, although it would help if you have a few years of high school Latin to speed up the process of using the phrases in the best possible context. If you have to write a lot of presentations or topical articles, this book is great value.

This is an excellent book! It is a great way to build vocabulary and learn those pesky endings. It also conatins many words of wisdom and wit. Using these phrases in writitng and speech will give you a flair of sophistication. This book taught me my favourite quote, from Horace "Dulce et decorem est pro patria mori" "There is no greater honour than to die for ones country" Being a die-hard Americo-Unian, I believe that! I reccomend this book to all lovers of Latin

Eugene Ehrlich's 'Amo, Amas, Amat and More' is a wonderful shorthand guide to Latin literacy for those who are struggling with Latin, or those of us who had a lot of Latin but little use since our last conjugation, er, um, examination.

Gives new meaning to 'conjugal visit' now, doesn't it? (Well, look it up for the distinctions.)

There is a very interesting introduction by William F. Buckley, Jr., who has been known to drop the odd Latinate phrase here or there in writing or speech. 'I suppose I am asked [to write this introduction] because the few Latin phrases I am comfortable with I tend to use without apology,' Buckley writes. He uses Latin phrases, he says, 'that cling to life because they seem to perform useful duties without any challenger rising up to take their place in English.' But, Buckley states, 'Probably the principal Latin-killer this side of the Huns was Vatican II.' With the end of use of Latin by Roman Catholic church, Latin became an almost exclusively academic pursuit, and then most often in 'useful' segments--i.e., legal Latin, medical Latin, etc.

This book is arranged as an encyclopedic dictionary of sorts -- there is an entry, including pronunciation (do you know if Latin uses a hard c or hard g, for instance, without looking?). Ehrlich also puts in literary examples of how the Latin phrase has come to be known in English (which is sometimes something apart from its original Latin meaning).

I give you the example used in my title as an sample entry:

carpe diem
KAHR-peh DEE-em
enjoy, enjoy

This famous advice, literally 'seize the day', is from Horace's Odes. The full thought is carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero (kwahm MIH-nih-muum KRAY-duu-lah PAW-ster-oh), which may be translated as 'enjoy today, trusting little in tomorrow'. Thus, carpe diem from ancient times until the present has been advice often and variously expressed: Enjoy yourself while you have the chance; eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; make hay while the sun shines; enjoy yourself, it's later than you think. In another century carpe diem was also an exhortation to maidens to give up their virginity and enjoy all the pleasures of life.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

So, if your motto is omne ignotum pro magnifico est a la Tacitus, and you'd like a little less unknown in your life, or simply wish to amaze your friends, this book is for you. I'm not the advocatus diaboli here, and I certainly won't give this book the pollice verso, so rush to your nearest scriptorium now and find this scroll, er, um, book.

I really like this dictionary. It gives definitions in a concise and direct way, using ordinary language that does not bury you in complexities as other more advanced dictionaries can. It does not have derivations, but it does have a very good pronounciation key and usage index. It also has the words in bold type standing out against the normal type of the definitions, making it easy to find words you are looking for fast. I highly recommend this edition for anyone new to the english language as well. It is simply a great dictionary.

no dictionary is perfect, that's just how language is. but i've used several dictionaries, and not one of them is worthy of the excellent definitions in this book i used to steal from my roommate. it's not all that slang-ful, but every beautiful word is made more so with the understanding this dictionary provides. you may not understand the passion until you experience it. words are sacred.

The _Oxford American Dictionary_ , edited by Dr. Eugene Ehrlich, et al., is the best paperback American English dictionary. Even though the reissue edition of this dictionary is almost twenty years old, I consider it to be the best because it has excellent usage notes sprinkled among the usual definitions of words. Here is an entry with a note on usage: "hope•ful•ly (hohp'-ful-lee) 'adv.' 1. in a hopeful way. 2. it is to be hoped, 'hopefully, we shall be there by one o'clock.' > Many people regard the second use as unacceptable."

According to the editors, this dictionary "contains words and phrases likely to be met in reading and everyday life, including a number of slang, informal, and technical words and phrases." Many proper nouns, common foreign words, and abbreviations are defined, too. I suggest its purchase to university students for classroom use because this dictionary is small enough to be carried in a backpack. Students of English as a foreign language find its pronunciation guides easy to use. Others find it quite handy to keep nearby, in offices and homes, as a quick reference when writing or reading.

Highly recommended!

British English A to Zed takes one back in time to a romantic age where an old people's home was called an almshouse, and a car battery was called an accumulator. Alas, this book is so outdated that it is not of much practical value to the average American who is headed to England. On the plus side, it is an enjoyable book full of rich expressions and makes good reading for those not in need of a practical reference book.

It was Antony of a Poly-Thinkers board who reminded me of this book which we have had for over a decade and for anyone who loves the BBC, or PBS programs with a British flare it is a valuable asset. It is helpful when watching Monty Python, All Creatures Great and Small and programs pre 1990 to have the terms explained. The book is basically about the General differences between British and American English.

On page 5 there are examples of different words used to define in British and American English:

Blunt (of a pencil) in British English would be said dull in American English
engaged in British English would mean busy and in American English tied-up
motor car in British English would be car or automobile in American English
Petrol would be in British English what gas or gasoline would be in American English.

On page 129 Americans who are used to hearing the term faggots as a derogatory term for a homosexual will learn that in country English it means a battered old woman or a cigarette. Fanny in American English refers to someone's (usually a woman's) buttocks. In British English it is much more interesting.

There is a section on food names, botanical and zoological names and the whole Britain, Briton, British English elements as well. Cricket terms and connotative place-names and connotative names of periodicals i.e. The Daily Telegraph, Punch etc.

What is Zed? On page 406: zed, n (noun) This explains the title! (letter) Z And now I am hungry for some bangers and mash.

Not just useful but entertaining. I got this book in exasperation when I couldn't make sense of Peter O'Toole's autobiography, because of all the English slang. This dictionary saved the day.

As with other Schaum's outlines, this one has lots of exercises for students to practice with. I was confused because I thought this book and Schaum's "theory and probs of english grammar" were different. In fact, they are the same (basically), but this one is simply an earlier edition... Perhaps the earliest??

This "dictionary" is so "highly selective" that it is not all that useful as a reference. If you encounter a word you want to look up, your chance of finding it in this dictionary is near zero.

It should be more appropriately named as a collection of certain less frequently used words. If you read this book from cover to cover, you will probably find that you know many of the words already and, of the ones you don't know, you may retain a few of them.

Well, I am probably not "extraordinarily literate."

Readers beware! You will not write more effectually after reading this book. One reviewer used "between" where "among" was needed, and another misused an apostrophe in "its."

I believe that there are two kinds of people in this world. The first type are people that use language merely as a means to communicate. The second type are people that use language as an artform.

If you are the first type of person; do not buy this book. It will have no use or meaning for you, and you certainly won't find it entertaining. Unless you just have a quirky need to read dictionaries, you won't dig this volume, AT ALL.

If you are the second type of person - the type that enjoys learning new words just for the sake of knowing them; the type that likes being able to say the same thing 15 different ways...then this book is for you.

I love to write. I love to read. I enjoy using words for fun and for creative expression. This book gave me words that I had never heard before and that is, indeed, becoming a rare treasure to find. I'm a huge word geek, and so this dictionary was a perfect fit for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I actually read it from cover to cover like a novel (except that I went through with a highlighter as I read). Words can be used to fill a lot of different purposes, and they can be enjoyed in a much broader way than just coming to understand the definitions. Conveying information is only ONE of language's many functions.

Though the words in this book are not likely to find a place in your daily conversational vocabulary set, they will most assuredly become a part of your poems, your stories, and that file-cabinet of knowledge we all keep way back in the recesses of our brains. I highly recommend this book to all of my fellow wordsmiths and nerd/geek/dorks the world over.

This book has a bad index, unuseful quotes, and is to expensive. I would only recomend this to somone who is stupid and wants to waste their money.

There are two kinds of quotation books-- those organized by alphabetically by subject and those organized by alphabetically or Chronologically by Author.

This is one of the best of the subject organized ones, with loads of subject headings (some Quote books only offer 100 or a few hundred. This one is much better and also offers suggestions for other related headings.) I've found the quality of the quotes to be excellent, with a nice mix of contemporary and classic sources.

As an avid quotation and quotation book collector, with over 400 books, some dating back over 400 years, (as well as a website of 1000-- a small fraction of the quotations I've collected) I have to say that this is one I keep handy, along with about 15 or 20 others. If you are a writer, speaker, teacher, etc., or if you are looking for a gift for someone who loves ideas, then this book is a very worthwhile investment.

One useful way to enjoy this book is to read specific topics to get an idea how a lot of different people think about that subject. This can often give you a first introduction to a writer you may want to get to know better. Then, you'll want to, perhaps, next look at a quotation book organized by author, or-- go directly to the works of the author.

Since another reviewer described this book so well, suffice it to say that if you frequently use quotes in your writing or research, this will be a gold mine. Highly recommend. However, I've only used the 1970 version - am looking forward to seeing what new quotes await in the updated version.

One of my roommates recently received this books as a gift. My curiousity got the better of me, and I picked it up to peruse it. With my sincerest apologies to the author, this has to be the worst version of any thesaurus I have seen to date. Of just a few words I decided to look up, and by no means were any of the words for the "extremely literate", I was unable to find even one of them. The volume of words in the collection are extremely limited, and synonyms provided are also limited. There are much better books available, in fact, almost any other thesaurus is better, even "pocket versions" of another thesaurus would prove more useful. My guess is that this book is the choice of the egotistical; a bookshelf trophy that serves no purpose other than to suggest superior intellect, and collect dust. The only positive aspect I can think of towards this publication is that it is sure to make the insecure feel "extraordinarily literate". If you want a valuable resource to broaden your vocabulary, this isn't the right book.

Nearly all the synonyms offered by Ehrlich can be found in any good general thesaurus. The few additions they make are nothing more than gold platted saw dust and anyone with collegiate English skills would recognize the [overblown] attempt to sound "Extraordinarily Literate." If you need a book to make yourself feel more secure in your writing abilities, feel free to waste your money. Personally, I'd ... just use thesaurus.com. If you're in need of a serious writing tool, look at J.I. Rodale's "Synonym Finder" or Roget's until they come up with something better.

I completely agree with the readers who felt that this book was fairly useless as one's only thesaurus. The title, I must also admit, conveys a fair amount of egotism. However, I bought this title as a supplement for Roget... and in that capacity, I love it! There are times when I simply cannot find the perfect word to express myself in the conventional thesaurus... That's when I break out my Highly Selective Thesaurus (although I am only moderately literate)and usually find something particularly intriguing... At least, I find it intriguing!