But that discussion rapidly degenerated into irritating whimsy about the phrase "Freeze the balls off a brass monkey"; and whimsy was never too far away, which was a pity, because some of the discussion of the way metaphor is transformed into banal language was gripping.
We're all for breezy books ― we ranked a few decidedly beachy reads among our favorite fiction books of the year last year ― but we think there can be more to a good summer book than a gripping plot and buoyant language, depending on what helps you unwind.
As his illness progressed, Lubbock wrote a memoir describing the slow loss of the grip on language that defined his life.
It ends at the point where Entwistle's very grip on language seems to run out: "John, I am a director general who has encountered these problems and is doing everything, I'm doin', I am doing everything I can.
When we get a grip on language we are connecting our brains to our breath.
While I was getting to grips with language and the intricacies of Freud's phallic stage of pyschosexual development, they were busying themselves with birthing drum and bass.
A major part of being academic is extending your vocabulary and grip of language.
Abbott loves to use the language of religion to condemn ISIL, because he is a religious man and religious terminology is gripping stuff.
The book is very beautifully written so that the language as well as the gripping story sucks you in.
His mastery of the literature, his clarity of thought and elegantly plain language make this weighty book gripping, memorable and easy to understand.
Among the most surprising qualities of "Babel No More," Michael Erard's globe-trekking adventure in search of the world's virtuosos of language learning, is that a book dealing with language acquisition and polyglot linguistics can be so gripping.
