"A kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point."

If you find yourself standing under the mistletoe this holiday season, keep that punctuational maxim in mind. It comes from the French actress and singer Mistinguett and appears in Mardy Grothe's delightful compendium "Metaphors Be With You" (Harper Collins, $19.99). It's just one of the terrific new books on words and language available for gift-giving this holiday season.

Grothe has collected 2,500 of history's greatest metaphorical quotations and arranged them in 250 categories, including authenticity ("You can't change the music of your soul." — Katharine Hepburn), gardening ("All gardening is landscape painting." — Alexander Pope), money ("Money doesn't talk, it swears." — Bob Dylan), and time ("Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in." — Henry David Thoreau).

If you've ever wondered how a dictionary is put together — spoiler alert! — someone doesn't just sit down and write the thing - you'll savor "The Word Detective" by John Simpson (Basic Books, $19.46). Simpson, who served as chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary for 20 years, recounts the fascinating stories of how editors track down the origins and meanings of words. Writing with a dry sense of humor, Simpson intersperses his memoir with mini-biographies of words ranging from "serendipity" to "selfie."

In Nebraska, a sale of household items is a "garage sale," in North Carolina, a "yard sale," and in Connecticut, a "tag sale." In Josh Katz' fascinating new book "Speaking American: How Y'all, Youse, and You Guys Talk: A Visual Guide" (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, $15), you'll not only read about these regional variations in vocabulary but you'll also SEE them. Katz has turned a lexicographical survey of more than 350,000 people into stunning, color-coded maps depicting America's regional dialects.

Sit still! That's what we sometimes want words to do. But the meanings of words are changing all the time. With humor and insight, esteemed linguist John McWhorter celebrates their irrepressible friskiness in "Words on the Move" (Henry Holt and Co., $20.80). "Silly" once meant "blessed," "ought" was once the past tense of "owe," and, to the dismay of many, "literally" has come to mean "figuratively." Writes McWhorter, "One of the hardest notions for humans to shake is that a language is something that is, when it is actually something always becoming."

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.