Origin of the Term 'shyster'


Book Description




Origin of the Term "shyster"


Book Description

The present monograph complements Cohen's 1982 study of shyster. The main contributions of his new work are a who's who for the shyster story and a revisionist look at the coiner of the term (Mike Walsh). Scholars are currently agreed that Walsh was a raving, ranting demagogue and a wild-eyed genius whose only contribution was the introduction of gangs into New York City's political process. Cohen argues, however, that Walsh possessed far more humanity (and possibly influence) than his critics have given him credit for. It is noteworthy too that the studies of Walsh and shyster shed light on each other; neither is complete alone.




Origin of the Term "shyster"


Book Description

Shyster has been one of the most difficult items for etymologists of English, but a Rosetta Stone to its origin exists: the previously overlooked 1843-1844 material in a New York City newspaper. This material contains an all-important conversation on shyster at the moment of its inception and permits the unearthing of the detailed story behind this term; very briefly, shyster arose as part of the editor's crusade against legal and political corruption in NYC and the attempts of the authorities to silence him. The present monography discusses the earlier unsuccessful attempts to find the term's etymology and then sets forth (and analyzes) the new material.




A Pragmatic Legal Expert System


Book Description

Most legal expert systems attempt to implement complex models of legal reasoning. This book argues that a complex model is unnecessary. It advocates a simpler, pragmatic approach in which the utility of a legal expert system is evaluated by reference, not to the extent to which it simulates a lawyer's approach to a legal problem, but to the quality of its predictions and of its arguments. The author describes the development of a legal expert system, called SHYSTER, which takes a pragmatic approach to case law. He discusses the testing of SHYSTER in four different and disparate areas of case law, and draws conclusions about the advantages and limitations of this approach to legal expert system development. Chapter 1 presents a critical analysis of previous work of relevance to the development of legal expert systems. Chapter 2 explains the pragmatic approach that was adopted in the development of SHYSTER. The implementation of SHYSTER is detailed using examples in chapter 3. Chapter 4 describes the testing of SHYSTER, and conclusions are drawn from those tests in chapter 5. Examples of SHYSTER's output are provided in appendices.




Origin of Kibosh


Book Description

This is an etymological study of the origins of the word kibosh, which has long been one of the great mysteries of the English language. Unconvincing derivations have been suggested from Yiddish to Gaelic and Italian, and thus far consensus among lexicographers has leaned toward referencing the word as ‘origin unknown’. In this study, the authors present convincing and important new evidence in favour of the derivation of kibosh from the word for a fearsome Middle Eastern whip, known as the kurbash. This monograph is one of the most significant etymological works directed at a single phrase. It is the gold standard on deep-drill, focused and exhaustive single-word lexicography and will be of interest to lexicographers and linguists in the relevant fields.




Origins of the Specious


Book Description

Do you cringe when a talking head pronounces “niche” as NITCH? Do you get bent out of shape when your teenager begins a sentence with “and”? Do you think British spellings are more “civilised” than the American versions? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re myth-informed. In Origins of the Specious, word mavens Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman reveal why some of grammar’s best-known “rules” aren’t—and never were—rules at all. This playfully witty, rigorously researched book sets the record straight about bogus word origins, politically correct fictions, phony français, fake acronyms, and more. Here are some shockers: “They” was once commonly used for both singular and plural, much the way “you” is today. And an eighteenth-century female grammarian, of all people, is largely responsible for the all-purpose “he.” From the Queen’s English to street slang, this eye-opening romp will be the toast of grammarphiles and the salvation of grammarphobes. Take our word for it.




A Bibliography of English Etymology


Book Description

Distinguished linguistics scholar Anatoly Liberman set out the frame for this volume in An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology. Here, Liberman's landmark scholarship lay the groundwork for his forthcoming multivolume analytic dictionary of the English language. A Bibliography of English Etymology is a broadly conceptualized reference tool that provides source materials for etymological research. For each word's etymology, there is a bibliographic entry that lists the word origin's primary sources, specifically, where it was first found in use. Featuring the history of more than 13,000 English words, their cognates, and their foreign antonyms, this is a full-fledged compendium of resources indispensable to any scholar of word origins.




A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir


Book Description

Featuring rumpled PIs, shyster lawyers, corrupt politicians, double-crossers, femmes fatales, and, of course, losers who find themselves down on their luck yet again, film noir is a perennially popular cinematic genre. This extensive encyclopedia describes movies from noir's earliest days – and even before, looking at some of noir's ancestors in US and European cinema – as well as noir's more recent offshoots, from neonoirs to erotic thrillers. Entries are arranged alphabetically, covering movies from all over the world – from every continent save Antarctica – with briefer details provided for several hundred additional movies within those entries. A copious appendix contains filmographies of prominent directors, actors, and writers. With coverage of blockbusters and program fillers from Going Straight (US 1916) to Broken City (US 2013) via Nora Inu (Japan 1949), O Anthropos tou Trainou (Greece 1958), El Less Wal Kilab (Egypt 1962), Reportaje a la Muerte (Peru 1993), Zift (Bulgaria 2008), and thousands more, A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir is an engrossing and essential reference work that should be on the shelves of every cinephile.




The Yale Law Journal


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The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English


Book Description

Booklist Top of the List Reference Source The heir and successor to Eric Partridge's brilliant magnum opus, The Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, this two-volume New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English is the definitive record of post WWII slang. Containing over 60,000 entries, this new edition of the authoritative work on slang details the slang and unconventional English of the English-speaking world since 1945, and through the first decade of the new millennium, with the same thorough, intense, and lively scholarship that characterized Partridge's own work. Unique, exciting and, at times, hilariously shocking, key features include: unprecedented coverage of World English, with equal prominence given to American and British English slang, and entries included from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, South Africa, Ireland, and the Caribbean emphasis on post-World War II slang and unconventional English published sources given for each entry, often including an early or significant example of the term’s use in print. hundreds of thousands of citations from popular literature, newspapers, magazines, movies, and songs illustrating usage of the headwords dating information for each headword in the tradition of Partridge, commentary on the term’s origins and meaning New to this edition: A new preface noting slang trends of the last five years Over 1,000 new entries from the US, UK and Australia New terms from the language of social networking Many entries now revised to include new dating, new citations from written sources and new glosses The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English is a spectacular resource infused with humour and learning – it’s rude, it’s delightful, and it’s a prize for anyone with a love of language.