Patrick Ragains

I gave this book to my mom, knowing what a word nerd she is, especially when it comes to pre-20th century dictionaries and lexicons, usually in the legal and/or biblical realms. While this book was nothing like either of us expected, it was serendipitous comic relief. This is her review:

Lexicon: American Style 2, which the author also refers to as a “flexicon,” is effectively lists of words, phrases and acronyms chosen for their clever, oxymoronic or quaint value, occasional annoyance factor, or just plain awesomeness. There are included many raunchy euphemisms and other ramblings, but to the author’s credit, ample warning is given preceding the potentially offensive pages.

The author, refreshingly, doesn’t take himself all too seriously, and his sense of humor is welcoming. However, his encouragement of the millennialesque slaughtering of the English language in the form of made-up words and text talking is more than a little irritating. Yes, I understand that English is a living language, but if linguistic liberties continue in this direction, we’ll all (well, almost all…) be clicking our tongues to communicate. Overall, the giggles exceeded the grumbles, so I give it 4 stars.… (mer)

This overpriced volume focuses on various examples drawn from academic libraries across the country who are partnering with professors to teach information literacy jointly across a wide variety of disciplines. For the teacher librarian in college prep schools, it isworth seeing how the current crop of academic librarians are integrating info.lit into actual curricular units rather than trying to teach separately or just on demand for information location. If you as a teacher librarian are looking ahead for a group of students, this might be a valuable resource, but it is not for the K-12 market.… (mer)