Henry Beard – författare

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.

A bestselling, Harvard-bred humorist plans to knock out a slapdash, quick-buck parody of a wildly successful, head-spinning, clue-laden thriller in a flagrant attempt to cash in on the publishing sensation of the decade, but the tousle-haired satirist's sleazy scheme goes awry when his two heroes -- beautiful, brilliant Sandra Damsel and brawny, brainy Professor William Franklin -- stumble on an explosive and frankly preposterous centuries-old secret that plunges them into a puzzle-packed, plot-crammed, prose-swollen Washington intrigue whose flabbergasting finale will determine the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. Cryptic praise for The Dick Cheney Code "1, 1!" (highest rating) -- The Fibonacci Report "Hysterical! Lacey shirt!" -- Anagram Monthly "I laughed so hard I xxxxxx in my pants!" -- Redacter's Digest "I bend over double! I hold my sides! I tickle my ribs! I slap my thighs!" -- Mime Magazine "Three syllables, sounds like: Upper arm? Broken arm? Broken bone? Radius? Humerus? HUMOROUS!" -- Charade Magazine "Too funny for words!" (9 letters, starting with P, ending in S) -- Acrostic Review

A bestselling, Harvard-bred humorist plans to knock out a slapdash, quick-buck parody of a wildly successful, head-spinning, clue-laden thriller in a flagrant attempt to cash in on the publishing sensation of the decade, but the tousle-haired satirist''s sleazy scheme goes awry when his two heroes -- beautiful, brilliant Sandra Damsel and brawny, brainy Professor William Franklin -- stumble on an explosive and frankly preposterous centuries-old secret that plunges them into a puzzle-packed, plot-crammed, prose-swollen Washington intrigue whose flabbergasting finale will determine the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. Cryptic praise for The Dick Cheney Code "1, 1!" (highest rating) -- The Fibonacci Report "Hysterical! Lacey shirt!" -- Anagram Monthly "I laughed so hard I xxxxxx in my pants!" -- Redacter''s Digest "I bend over double! I hold my sides! I tickle my ribs! I slap my thighs!" -- Mime Magazine "Three syllables, sounds like: Upper arm? Broken arm? Broken bone? Radius? Humerus? HUMOROUS!" -- Charade Magazine "Too funny for words!" (9 letters, starting with P, ending in S) -- Acrostic Review

This duffer's dictionary is the perfect gift for every insatiable hacker. 559,000 copies in print.Beard & McKie lexicons have over 2.3 million copies in print.

From cocktail party chitchat, to bumper stickers, to personal ads--everything you''ll ever need to say in perfect Latin! A backlistius bestsellerus.

In staff meetings and singles bars, on freeways and fairways, there are aggravating people lurking everywhere these days. But bestselling humorist Henry Beard has the perfect comeback for all prickly situations, offering a slew of quips your nemesis won''t soon forget . . . or even understand.

Beard''s gift is his ability to make fun of popular culture and the current zeitgeist. In X-Treme Latin he provides Latin with an attitude, an indispensable phrasebook that taps the secret power of Latin to deliver, in total safety, hundreds of impeccable put-downs, comebacks, and wisecracks. Within its pages you will learn how to insult or fire coworkers; blame corporate scandals on someone else; cheer at a World Wrestling Entertainment match; talk back to your computer, TV, or Game Boy; deal with your road rage; evade threatening situations; snowboard in style; talk like Tony Soprano; and much more.

With dozens more zingers for quashing e-mail pranks, psyching out your golf opponent, giving backhanded compliments, and evading awkward questions, X-Treme Latin is destined for magnus popularity and will have readers cheering, “Celebremus!”

As a serious player, a high handicapper, or simply a baffled onlooker to the awesome nonsense that is golf, have you ever wondered why, say, the golf balls have dimples, and the tee is both the thing you stick in the ground and the place you hit from, and the hole is so small, and the courses have all these big pits full of sand where any sane person would put grass? Well, so did noted humor writer and avid hacker Henry Beard, who brought twenty-first-century computer search-engine technology to bear on this thousand-year-old game, tapping the internet''s inherent capacity to confer a thin veneer of authenticity to far-fetched accounts of great moments in the history of golf, warped portraits of its legendary players, and fanciful conjectures about its origins and evolution. Employing an easy-to-read and simple-to-fudge timeline format, he chronicles the amazing process through which this screwy pastime with wacky equipment and loony rules played for penny wagers by a bunch of bored-silly shepherds was gradually transformed into a screwy sport with wacky equipment and loony rules played for million-dollar purses by superstar athletes. As he peers through the mists of time to the birthplace of the game, Beard resolves once and for all its many mysteries, like where those weird-looking pants came from, when the fi rst telling of the "Hit, drag Harry" joke was, what a Stimpmeter is, and who dreamed up the idea of those stupid blimps. Here, then, in one convenient golf-bag-side-pocket-sized volume is a rich, wildly embroidered, ludicrously embellished tapestry of colorful fabrications and highly entertaining but thoroughly dubious speculations that tell the tall tale of golf -- the game that deranged the world.

IGNORE THIS BOOK AT YOUR PERIL! Did you know that carrots cause blindness and bananas are radioactive? That too many candlelight dinners can cause cancer? And not only is bottled water a veritable petri dish of biohazards (so is tap water, by the way) but riding a bicycle might destroy your sex life?  In Encyclopedia Paranoiaca, master satirists Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf have assembled an authoritative, disturbingly comprehensive, and utterly debilitating inventory of things poised to harm, maim, or kill you—all of them based on actual research about the perils of everyday life. Painstakingly alphabetized, cross-referenced, and thoroughly sourced for easy reference, this book just might save your life. (Apologies in advance if it doesn’t.) Beard and Cerf cite convincing evidence that everyday things we consider healthy—eating leafy greens, flossing, washing our hands—are actually harmful, and items we thought were innocuous— drinking straws, flip-flops, neckties, skinny jeans— pose life-threatening dangers. Did you know that nearly ten thousand people are sent to the emergency room each year because of escalator accidents, and, despite what you’ve heard, farmers’ markets may actually be less safe than grocery stores? And if you’re crossing your legs right now, you’re definitely at serious risk. Hilarious, insightful, and, at times, downright terrifying, Encyclopedia Paranoiaca brings to light a whole host of hidden threats and looming dooms that make asteroid impacts, planetary pandemics, and global warming look like a walk in the park (which is also emphatically not recommended). *** The Definitive Compendium of Things You Absolutely, Positively Must Not Eat, Drink, Wear, Take, Grow, Make, Buy, Use, Do, Permit, Believe, or Let Yourself Be Exposed to, Including an Awful Lot of Toxic, Lethal, Horrible Stuff That You Thought Was Safe, Good, or Healthy; All Sorts of Really Bad People Who Are Out to Get, Cheat, Steal from, or Otherwise Take Advantage of You; and a Whole Host of Existential Threats and Looming Dooms That Make Global Warming, Giant Meteors, and Planetary Pandemics Look Like a Walk in the Park (with Its High Risk of Skin Cancer, Broken Bones, Bee Stings, Allergic Seizures, Animal Attacks, Criminal Assaults, and Lightning Strikes)