Available Now!

Dances with Words
Playing live in San Diego
July 22-24
(Click here)

Richard’s latest book
American History for Everyone
(click here)

Richard’s revealing interview
in the San Diego Union-Tribune,
Nov 2nd
(click here)

Live Speaking Events

“Someone should declare Richard Lederer a national treasure” — Richmond Times-Dispatch

“America’s Wittiest Verbalist” — Book of the Month Club

“The true King of Language Comedy” — Sidney Sheldon

“America’s Top Pun” — Chicago Tribune

“Columnist Extraordinaire” — The New Yorker

“Lederer beguiles and bedazzles” — Los Angeles Times

Richard's Latest Column

Read “Lederer on Language” every other Saturday in the San Diego Union Tribune and right here

The true scuttlebutt about our nautical English language

Let’s go sailing, sailing over the bounding main. A mainstay is a strong rope that helps stabilize a ship’s main mast, but for most of us mainstay means “the most important part of something; someone or something that provides primary support,” as in “The Union-Triune is a mainstay of our San Diego community.” In the same fleet as mainstay sails flagship, a ship that carries the commander’s flag and has come to mean “the best and most important of a group.” For old salts and ancient mariners, by and large was a command that meant “to sail slightly off the wind,” in contrast to full and by, “keeping the sails full of all the wind possible.” When we say by

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Newest Books
American History for Everyone
American History for Everyone will make the American adventure come alive for you.  
Anguished English
Laugh yourself silly with the national best-selling Anguished English, a side-splitting collection of accidental assaults on the English language.
Jest for the Pun of It
Whet your Wit with this Hilarious Punster's Bible. Also identifies what puns are and how to create them.
A Feast of Words
This book is a career-capping anthology of essays that inspire, enlighten, and tickle the funny bone.