Welcome to Susanna Janssen's wondrous world of words. In Wordstruck! you'll find a wealth of entertaining reflections on language full of humor, imagination, and insight. Anything goes, from the genius of Shakespeare to the unintentional hilarity of linguistic faux pas; from musings on the bilingual brain to the poignant humor of her "Life in Words"; from translations gone riotously bad to English learners tortured by our mother tongue's inconstant consonants and sudden vowel movements. In this fun and fascinating look at language and the cultures that create it, you'll find a new love for metaphor, a fabulous arsenal of fascinating word origins, a surprising cure for earworms, a joyful romp with everyone's favorite grammar errors, and a way to spot liars by listening to their words. You'll learn that color can be a language as foreign as Farsi, and that there are countless words in other languages that don't exist in English. You'll also discover a murder of crows in the tree, a mixed bag of labradoodles by the backyard fence, your friends hanging out in a club called the Ron-Day-Voo, and a late-model Nissan Moco* parked outside. Sacré bleu! Mamma mia! ¡Qué horror! But you can take cheer that the government's proposed "nuclear suppository" is not going to be built after all. Dive into this love affair with the lexicon. Please smile, do laugh, and if you cry, it might be at the very last page. *Moco in Spanish means "mucus; snot"