Customer Reviews

Depraved English

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
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I absolutely love this book! I always knew that there were words out there like this, but I never knew where to find them. I love words, and this was the funniest thing that I've read in years. I'm buying copies for everyone that I know for Christmas.

This book brought me a handful of half-hearted chuckles, but not one serious belly laugh. Beyond the "oh my goodness" smirking over a book containing so many "unmentionables", there just really isn't much to it.

It's a small book, with big type, lots of white space and illustrations, so there aren't really that many words here. And the authors therefore felt the need to pad it further with sample sentences showing the words in "humorous" context. These examples were almost always predictable and rarely added anything to the definition.

"beray /bee RAY/ v. - To splatter with feces. 'After getting berayed yet again, Ted the zookeeper made a grim vow: one day he would get even with those damn monkeys.'"

Did you laugh? I didn't.

This book is all very tasteful and proper - the illustrations are 18th century etchings, the representative characters all named Percy and Roderick - and I found this decidedly boring.

For my money, the British "Roger's Profanisaurus" (available at Amazon.co.uk) left this stilted volume in the dust.

Everyone has, at some point, lost a good chunk of time poring over the dictionary in search of new, unusual and even bizarre. These guys did just that and compiled them. Many of the words are sexual in nature, but not all are sophomoric. What I love about the book is that for each word, they write a sentence or more about that word. Sometimes they put the word in a sentence, to put it in better context, other times they explain it or give you some commentary. The book is both hilarious and serious at the same time. Good intellectual fun, bringing new meaning to "increasing your vocabulary."

I laughed so hard. My stomach hurt real bad. I got a little bit scared...it felt good in one way, but in another way, I was a bit nervous that some part of me was going to burst. I had to put the book down for a while. A few weeks later, I gathered up the nerve to dip in again. The same thing happened. Whew! Strongly recomended.

This is probably the single funniest book I've ever read. I never knew that words like this existed. These are the words that I've been looking for to describe everything in life that I thought was indescribable. Furthermore, the author illustrates the words by using each one in a sentence. My friends and I had hours of fun either just reading aloud to each other or using the book to play word games.

"Depraved English" is a marvelous book, for both young and old. It would come as no surprise to hear that the SAT folks in Princeton were scanning it for a more interesting "800" score challenge!

In any case, it certainly would have enhanced my appreciation of the Wordsworthian Lyrical Ballads if a word or two from "Depraved English" had been incorporated into this famous work. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" would have had an additional timeless vigor and gusto!

Like a fellow reviewer mentions, I too, first came across the word "callipygian" ("having nicely shaped buttocks")in my college (sic)"daze". My source was another literary gem entitled "Mrs. Byrnes' Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Obsolete Words" (which I believe is unfortunately no longer available). And of course, don't forget "steatopygic" (an extreme accumulation of fat on the buttocks). I reckon that the beauty of life is that each, in their own right, are words of the "pygophilous".

Wahtever your passions, whatever your tastes, "Depraved English" is a full course meal for word epicureans. Bonne Appetite!

There's a word for it, whether it's an egregious social blunder, preverted sexual practice, or demented personality trait, you'll find a word for it in either book. The humor value is worth more than the word value in some cases.

An excellent book, chock full of the sort of obscure and disgusting words that I wish I could recall at the right times.

This book reminds you of what a surprising, exciting, bizarre treasure trove our English language really is. The authors' abundant delight in words comes through on every page. Yes, the words are depraved, but they are used for the most enlightened of purposes: to help us better describe the world around us and to become better aware of aspects of it that we didn't know existed. But forget all that, it's just fun. It's a lot of fun to read beautiful words about nasty things.

This is probably the single funniest book I've ever read. I never knew that words like this existed. These are the words that I've been looking for to describe everything in life that I thought was indescribable. Furthermore, the author illustrates the words by using each one in a sentence. My friends and I had hours of fun either just reading aloud to each other or using the book to play word games.