How to Do Things With Words

How to Do Things With Words is perhaps Austin's most influential work. In it he attacks what was at his time a predominant account in philosophy, namely, the view that the chief business of sentences is to state facts, and thus to be true or false based on the truth or falsity of those facts. In contrast to this common view, he argues, truth-evaluable sentences form only a small part of the range of utterances. After introducing several kinds of sentences which he assumes are indeed not truth-evaluable, he turns in particular to one of these kinds of sentences, which he deems performative utterances. These he characterises by two features:

* First, to utter one of these sentences is not just to "say" something, but rather to perform a certain kind of action.
* Second, these sentences are not true or false; rather, when something goes wrong in connection with the utterance then the utterance is, as he puts it, "infelicitous", or "unhappy."

The action which performative sentences 'perform' when they are uttered belongs to what Austin later calls a speech act (more particularly, the kind of action Austin has in mind is what he subsequently terms the illocutionary act). For example, if you say “I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth," and the circumstances are appropriate in certain ways, then you will have done something special, namely, you will have performed the act of naming the ship. Other examples include: "I take this man as my lawfully wedded husband," used in the course of a marriage ceremony, or "I bequeath this watch to my brother," as occurring in a will. In all three cases the sentence is not being used to describe or state what one is 'doing', but being used to actually 'do' it.

The Economist September 1 2007
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by "The Economist Newspaper Ltd" and edited in London. It has been in continuous publication since James Wilson established it in September 1843. As of 2006, its average circulation topped one million copies a week, about half of which are sold in North America.[1] Consequently it is often seen as a transatlantic (as opposed to solely British) news source.

This book teaches hearing parents how to use simple sign language gestures to communicate with their hearing infants before their infants can speak.
Joseph Garcia uses anecdotes, practical guidelines and humor to explain the benefits and method for taking advantage of this unique form of early communication. He will help you recognize when your child is receptive to learning. He recommends which signs to teach first and shares ideas for games that can be fun and useful when introducing new signs. The book is also a useful reference with 145 clearly illustrated signs, enabling you to choose and teach the signs that will be most beneficial to you and your child.

The Sea Wolf by Jack London
" The danger lay in the heavy fog which blanketed the bay, and of which, as a landsman, I had little apprehension " This is the first line that the listener hears in this tale of a man uprooted and thrust into the unfamiliar and dangerous world of the sealing sailor.

Humphrey Van Weyden, a San Francisco sophisticate and an intellectual finds himself the captive voyager aboard the Ghost, captained by the brutal and barbaric Wolf Larsen. The desperate character of Van Weyden's voyage is defined by the fact that he is out of his element, in unimaginable peril, and the slave of this cynical and wild soul, Larsen. The rights of man vanish as the coast of California vanishes over the horizon.

Almost immediately, the slave plots his freedom - and must confront the weakness in his soul, mind and body. Generations have been spellbound by this harrowing story of danger on the sea, psychological confrontation, and the dual nature of humankind.