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Spinglish

The Definitive Dictionary of Deliberately Deceptive Language

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
Spinglish—the devious dialect of English used by professional spin doctors—is all around us. And the fact is, until you’ve mastered it, politicians and corporations (not to mention your colleagues and friends) will continue putting things over on you, and generally getting the better of you, every minute of every day—without your even knowing it.
            However, once you perfect the art of terminological inexactitude, you’ll be the one manipulating and one-upping everyone else! And here’s the beauty part: Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf, authors of the New York Times semi-bestseller The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook, have compiled this handy yet astonishingly comprehensive lexicon and translation guide—a fictionary, if you will—to help you do just that. If you want to succeed in business (or politics, sports, the arts, or life in general) without really lying, this is the book for you! (Your results may vary.)
            Spinglish includes these nifty bits of spurious verbiage and over a thousand more:
 
aesthetic procedure – face-lift
dairy nutrients – cow manure
enhanced interrogation techniques – torture
 “For your convenience.” – “For our convenience.”
hands-on mentoring – sexual relations with a junior employee
incomplete success – failure
rightsizing – firing people
zero-tasking – doing nothing
 
            With each and every entry sourced from some of the greatest real-life language benders in the world today, you’re virtually guaranteed to have the perfectly chosen tried-and-untrue term right at the tip of your forked tongue. Wish you could nimbly sidestep a question without batting an eye? Not sure how to apologize while also . . . not apologizing? Spinglish has you covered. Simply consult this convenient, shoot-from-the-lip glossary, and before you know it, you’ll be telling it like it isn’t, it wasn’t, and it couldn’t ever have been.
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    • Library Journal

      Starred review from August 1, 2015

      Echoing their previous publications (The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook and The Official Sexually Correct Dictionary and Dating Guide), Beard and Cerf offer a serious, comprehensive, and informative lexicon of terms and phrases that "spin doctors" have used to put to gloss over real meaning. Instead of surveillance, for example, we find data collection. Spin often requires two or three words when the actual expression can usually be accomplished in one. Strippers are exotic dancers and theft is inventory shrinkage. There are two parts to this alphabetically arranged compendium. The first part translates "Spinglish" into commonly known English equivalents and the second part takes everyday English language terms and morphs them into Spinglish--teacher becomes learning facilitator, for example. Each entry has an appropriate citation, showing the source of the "spin" meaning. VERDICT This book is enlightening and often just plain funny.--Herbert E. Shapiro, Lifelong Learning Soc., Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton

      Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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  • English

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