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Headline deputy publishing director Sarah Emsley has bought a gift book detailing trench lingo from the First World War.
Emsley bought world English rights from Rupert Heath at the Rupert Heath Agency to Roger, Sausage and Minge: A Miscellany of Trench Lingo from the Great War by writer and journalist Christopher Moore. The book will be published in October 2012.
The book purports to be discovered among the effects of Captain Cartwright. It lists words and phrases alphabetically, with an excerpt from one of Cartwright's letters home preceding each letter of the alphabet.
Emsley said: "This is a brilliant little book. Laugh-out-loud funny in places it is also a fascinating insight into life in the trenches as well as a treasure trove of information about the English language."
Moore said: "Now that the last of the Great War's veterans has gone west, no one remains to speak directly to us of the Western Front, 1914—1918. All we have left is trench lingo—the jargon, dialect and slang from every corner of the English-speaking world that did battle in France and Flanders.
"Roger, Sausage and Minge is an ironic rasp of defiance from the ranks that reveals how the Great War was spoken by the brave and bitter soldiers who fought it."