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Do you know the name for someone who loves listening in bed, or what a binfluencer does? How about the medieval invention of Lubberland as a place for lazy teenagers, or the story of Mayday as a request for help? Lexicographer extraordinaire and Queen of Countdown's Dictionary Corner, Susie Dent does and here are her greatest discoveries. From wabbit to dust bunnies, and from the strange history of arse to the best ways to describe moonlight, Words for Life offers a full year's supply of verbal vitamins guaranteed to brighten and boost every day.

Martha Barnette has spent two decades as the co-host of A Way with Words, lauded by Mary Norris in The New Yorker as “a virtual treasure house” and “‘Car Talk’ for Lexiphiles.” Over that time, she’s developed a keen sense of what fascinates people about language. They are curious about etymology and revel in slang, are surprised by regional vocabulary and celebrate linguistic diversity. Idioms both puzzle and delight word lovers, and they are eager to share family neologisms and that weird phrase Grandma always used to say.

From the rise of leetspeak and words such as “unalive” to the trend of adding “-core” to different influencer aesthetics, the internet has ushered in an unprecedented linguistic upheaval. We’re entering an entirely new era of etymology, heralded by the invisible forces driving social media algorithms. And with over 7 billion internet users uploading over 2.5 quintillion bytes of media every day, the sheer volume of potential new words is astounding.

Bitch is a bitch of a word. It used to be a straightforward insult, but today—after so many variations and efforts to reject or reclaim the word—it's not always entirely clear what it means. Bitch is a chameleon. There are good bitches and bad bitches; sexy bitches and psycho bitches; boss bitches and even perfect bitches. This eye-opening deep-dive account takes us on a journey spanning a millennium, from its humble beginnings as a word for a female dog through to its myriad meanings today, proving that sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks.