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• Richard Lederer's Word Fun •

Richard Lederer is an American author, speaker, and teacher known for his clever books on word play. His work explores grammatical errors, ambiguities, oxymora, palindromes and puns, anagrams, word and phrase origins, word games, and other fascinating peculiarities of and things to do with language.

In addition to his books, from 1998 to 2006 he and Charles Harrington Elster hosted a weekly radio show called A Way with Words for KPBS, San Diego Public Radio. His column, "Looking at Language", is syndicated in newspapers and magazines throughout the United States. He continues broadcasting through regular guest appearances on several major market public and clear-channel commercial radio stations.

Lederer has written more than 30 books on the peculiarities of English, all with clever names like Anguished English, Get Thee to a Punnery, Crazy English, A Man of My Words, The Word Circus, The Miracle of Language, The Cunning Linguist, and Word Wizard, and Presidential Trivia.

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Anguished English
An Anthology of Accidental Assaults upon Our Language
by Richard Lederer
$7.50

Richard Lederer is Dr. Goodword's favorite author on the subject of language fun. No one has found so many clever clues, jokes, puns, games, riddles in the English language as this author. Anguished English is one of his best: the impossibly funny anthology of accidental assaults upon our language. From Bloopers and Blunders to Signs of the Times to Mixed Up Metaphors, from Two-Headed Headlines to Mangling Modifiers, here is an outrageous treasury of assaults upon our common language that will leave you roaring with delight and laughter.

Fractured English
by Richard Lederer
$14.25

Bestselling author Richard Lederer has done it again with this collection of language gems, presented in his signature style—uncut, unpolished, and one hundred percent genuine. Fractured English is the only place you'll encounter this student's complaint: "I pass all my testes. My grade should be hirer", or this headache of a headline: "Legislators Tax Brains to Cut Deficit". Revel in the delightful anarchy of words run amok, but caveat emptor: "Richard Lederer's books are good medicine, except for the incontinent", writes an ardent admirer. Venture from the Mouths of Babes to Classified Classics, Poli-Tickle Speeches, Science Friction, Blessed Bloopers, and more.

Get Thee to a Punnery
by Richard Lederer
$9.95

Get Thee to a Punnery proves that the pun is mightier than the sword. Here are sidesplitting puns of every color, stripe, and persuasion that will tickle your humerus even if you don't know that it is your funny bone. Enjoy the Time of the Signs: Rock a Dry Baby on the side of a diaper truck, A flush is better than a full house on a plumber's truck. Guffaw at the funniest one-liners of history: "Show me where Stalin is buried and I'll show you a communist plot!" (Edgar Bergen), "Quiche me, I'm French!" "Hangover: the wrath of grapes", including classics like Oscar Wilde's quip, "Work is the ruin of the drinking classes." They are all here. Enjoy! If you love puns, here is the punniest book ever written.

Comma Sense
A Fundamental Guide to Punctuation
by Richard Lederer & John Shore
$9.95

Are you confounded by commas, addled by apostrophes, or queasy about quotation marks? Do you believe a bracket is just a support for a wall shelf, a dash is something you make for the bathroom, and a colon and semicolon are large and small intestines? If so, language humorists Richard Lederer and John Shore (with the sprightly aid of illustrator Jim McLean), have written the perfect book to help make your written words perfectly precise and punctuationally profound. The authors show how each mark of punctuation can be associated with a great American icon: the powerful period with Seabiscuit; the jazzy semicolon with Duke Ellington; even the rebel apostrophe with famed outlaw Jesse James. When you've finished Comma Sense, you'll not only have everything you need to know about punctuation, you'll have had fun doing so.

Crazy English
The Ultimate Joy-Ride through our Language (revised edition)
by Richard Lederer
$14.00 (explore Powell's for a lower price)

In this revised edition of his classic book, Lederer frolics through the logic-boggling byways of the English language and unveils new chapters on misnomers, retronyms, and the Department of Redundancy Department. "Let's face it," Lederer says, "English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins were not invented in England or french fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So, one moose, 2 meese? One index, two indices? Is cheese the plural of choose? Get this book and discover questions like these to all your answers."

The Word Circus
The Lighter Side of Language
by Richard Lederer
$14.95 (explore Powell's for a lower price)

Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Word-lovers of all ages! Step right up to a shirling, swirling, twirling circus of wordplay. You'll ooh and ah at a Collide-O-Scope of letters leaping and pirouetting in ways you've never dreamed possible! Ringmaster and wordmaster Richard Lederer puts on a letter-perfect who worthy of the fabulous P. T. Barnum himself. See rare animals like the Palindromedary and Mary's Letter Lamb. Watch as hidden words spill from the insides of colorful Clown Cars. Ana Grams, Kangaroo Games, Shrinking Spotlights—you name the word game and it will appear in this verbivorial circus of delight.

The Play of Words
Fun and Games for Language Lovers
by Richard Lederer
$7.95 (explore Powell's for a lower price)

If you like word play, you will love Richard's collection of word games. Do you know the connection between the expression "a harrowing experience" and agriculture, between "by and large" and sailing, between "get your goat" and horses, or between "steal your thunder" and show business? You probably have heard the comparisons "happy as a clam", "smart as a whip", "pleased as punch", "dead as a doornail"—but have you ever wondered why a clam should be happy, a whip smart, punch pleased, and a doornail dead? By playing the fifty games in this book , you'll discover the answers to these questions as well as hundreds of other semantic delights that repose in our marvelous English language. Some of these games are as easy as rolling off a log, while others may leave you stumped (until you peek at the answers). But whether you play alone or with friends, this collection of matchless semantic antics will bring you hours of lexicological pleasure.

Puns Spooken Here
Fun and Games for Halloween
by Richard Lederer
$7.25 (explore Powell's for a lower price)

What's a skeleton's favorite food? Spare ribs. What was the witch's favorite subject in school? Spelling. What kind of horse does a ghost ride? A night mare. How does an exorcist keep in shape? He rides an exorcycle. From New York Times best-selling author and linguist Richard Lederer comes this fun little book packed with puns, riddles, jokes, games, stories, and more! What do you call an empty hot dog? A hollow weenie. Why did the vampire join the police force? So he could learn how to get a stake out. What's the favorite food of mathematicians? Pumpkin pie. This is just a sampling. Puns Spooken Here is sure to contain puns that you will want to use in defending yourself from punsters—and it is the perfect gift for all your fiends and the other little goblins in your life.