Collection
Publication
London : Icon Books, 2011.
Description
Education. Reference. Nonfiction. HTML: Do you know why... ...a mortgage is literally a death pledge? ...why guns have girls' names? ...why salt is related to soldier? You're about to find out... The Etymologicon (e-t?-'mä-lä-ji-kän) is: Witty (wi-te\): Full of clever humor Erudite (er-?-dit): Showing knowledge Ribald (ri-b?ld): Crude, offensive The Etymologicon is a completely unauthorized guide to the strange underpinnings of the English language. It explains: how you get from "gruntled" to "disgruntled"; why you are absolutely right to believe that your meager salary barely covers "money for salt"; how the biggest chain of coffee shops in the world (hint: Seattle) connects to whaling in Nantucket; and what precisely the Rolling Stones have to do with gard… (more)
Language
User reviews
LibraryThing member angel93
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Not for the reader who is looking for an intense, in depth book about etymology but that is not what it proposes to be. It is lighthearted and very readable, it does not however make the reader feel patronized and as if they need to have their hand held on this
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circular journey. I found it witty, fast paced and incredibly interesting. I borrowed it from a friend and enjoyed it enough to purchase my own copy as it will be great to dip in and out of, and if you're forgetful like me, to remind one of why a word has such an interesting history. Show Less
LibraryThing member Mike-Fitzgibbons
You can open this book at any page and read. The maze of links from one word to another makes for complete enjoyment. Like a butterfly it flits from theme to theme. Well researched and cleverly crafted to give a seamless flow. The more I read, the more I have come to realise that etymology is in
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reality just a sub plot. Show Less
LibraryThing member fueledbycoffee
This book is jammed pack with some of the best etymological histories Ive ever read. Its not one of those books you sit down and plow through. I usually read it while waiting for kids at the dentist or in the kitchen watching a pot boil (which completely, methodically, and scientifically
I recommend this as a carpool/bathroom reader/waiting room/pot watching book for those logomaniacs and lexorcists who love a turn of phrase and relish epic wordsmith butchery birthed from verbal provenance.
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invalidated the notion that a watched pot never boils...watched pots boil, too, in case you wondered.)I recommend this as a carpool/bathroom reader/waiting room/pot watching book for those logomaniacs and lexorcists who love a turn of phrase and relish epic wordsmith butchery birthed from verbal provenance.
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LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
Rather a fatuous book and I regret having wasted valuable time reading it.
The idea of a humorous yet also scholarly reflection on etymological themes was a clever one, but sadly Forsyth lacked the skill to take the task on. I never thought I might write the following words but I think that even
Certainly the worst book I have had the misfortune to read this year and probably in my bottom twenty of the century so far.
The idea of a humorous yet also scholarly reflection on etymological themes was a clever one, but sadly Forsyth lacked the skill to take the task on. I never thought I might write the following words but I think that even
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Bruce Forsyth might have been more amusing.Certainly the worst book I have had the misfortune to read this year and probably in my bottom twenty of the century so far.
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LibraryThing member Kristelh
An enjoyable rapid march through words in the English language, their origins and it flows to the next word, thus the circular. The author is funny. The longest one word sentence, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. It is grammatically correct, referring to the town, to
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bully, the animal, It also covered such sayings as we are accustomed to and whether their origin is what is claimed or myth, Words like Halcion days which is about the weather when the kingfisher (Halcion) lays her eggs on the water--the origin, Ovid and his Metamorphoses. A fun book and I will read it again. Show Less
LibraryThing member Meggo
What a fun look at language and where words and phrases come from. Connections abound in this book, which is surprisingly engaging for an in-depth study of English language. Recommended, and not just for hard-core linguists.
LibraryThing member martensgirl
I loved this book as so many books on etymology can be dreary and pedantic. This book is lighthearted and witty- a great introduction to this topic.
LibraryThing member annbury
This amusing book explores some of the more obscure linkages between apparently unrelated English words. In doing so, it takes the reader on a merry tour of word origins, word borrowing, word change, and word almost everything. It is more of a "Hey look at this" book that a "these relationships
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suggest that --- " book, but if you are looking for fun with English words it is a good place to go. Would make a great stocking stuffer for word mavens. Show Less
LibraryThing member vguy
Just great fun! some of the jokes creak a bit but he's enjoying himself so I did too. One or two of his etymologies looked a bit doubtful but the ones i tried to verify seems OK. and anyway etymolgy is a bit of a speculative science. His account of the origins of Assassin, which i'm familiar with,
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is a gem of history linguistics and humour. Show Less
LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle
Being the type of pedantic reader who double checks the vocabulary of historical novels at Etymonline, and whose favourite fun fact is that 'feisty' means a little farting dog, I couldn't resist this book. I think the paper version might be more accessible than the ebook, however - this is one to
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browse, not devour page by page. A host of interesting, obscure and quotable word origins, from avocado testicles to injecting sausage poison (Botox), plus 'who coined what', this is the perfect gift for anyone who gens up on episodes of QI so that they can bore people silly with pointless 'Did you know ...?' trivia. Show Less
LibraryThing member Lukerik
A superb little book. Consistently interesting with lots of jokes and a certain manic headlong rush. His explanation of the word 'partridge' is particularly fine.
I think etymologicons should be a new genre, defined as a circular stroll through the hidden connections of a language.
I think etymologicons should be a new genre, defined as a circular stroll through the hidden connections of a language.
LibraryThing member passion4reading
A funny, enlightening and ingenious book about the origins and hidden connections between words in a light-hearted and often irreverent way, which starts and ends with books, and covers everything else in-between: from chickens, testicles and sausages to Bohemia, California and assassins on drugs.
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You will never think about certain words in the same way again. Show Less
LibraryThing member jtck121166
Really delightful tour around the thesaurus that is the author's mind.
The tone is perfectly matched to form and contents: an interesting and lovely little book.
The tone is perfectly matched to form and contents: an interesting and lovely little book.
LibraryThing member readingwithtea
"It was after an incident such as this that my friends and family decided something must be done. They gathered for a confabulation and, having established that psychiatric care was beyond their means, they turned in despair to the publishing industry, which has a long history of picking up where
Mark Forsyth is the author of the Inky Fool blog where he delights in revealing the little known evolutions of some of our favourite words and phrases (today's option: Bob's Your Uncle). This book is a collection of similar thoughts, "organised" in a constant stream so that one chapter links to the next. He does manage to cover monkeys, film buffs and the Rolling Stones, so the structure of the book does not limit its content!
Forsyth has a wonderful sense of humour, and uses it to great effect to break up what could otherwise have been a very informative but dry work. Some of my favourite quotes:
"Do you know the difference between the clouds and the sky? If you do, you're lucky, because if you live in England, the two are pretty much synonymous."
"The Latin word for sausage was botulus, from which English gets two words. One of them is the lovely botuliform, which means sausage-shaped and is a more useful word than you might think. The other word is botulism."
"If you were caught stealing a loaf of bread in early Victorian Britain you were sent to Australia, where there was less bread but much more sunshine. This system was abolished in 1850 when word got back to Britain that Australia was, in fact, a lovely place to live and therefore didn't count as punishment."
I found myself wondering as to the scholarly provenance of some of his explanations, but he provides a bibliography and references, so I suppose I shall have to put my Wikipedia-esque "citation needed" thoughts to one side.
This is a really delightful book for about 10-15 minutes. You can dip in, learn a few things, have a chuckle at some of what Forsyth has to say, and carry on with your day. However, my commute is usually 30-60 minutes, and in that time the light and fluffy tone got on my nerves. A minor quibble perhaps, but one that meant this book dragged on far too long for me. I would quite happily have read something half the size.
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social work leaves off."Mark Forsyth is the author of the Inky Fool blog where he delights in revealing the little known evolutions of some of our favourite words and phrases (today's option: Bob's Your Uncle). This book is a collection of similar thoughts, "organised" in a constant stream so that one chapter links to the next. He does manage to cover monkeys, film buffs and the Rolling Stones, so the structure of the book does not limit its content!
Forsyth has a wonderful sense of humour, and uses it to great effect to break up what could otherwise have been a very informative but dry work. Some of my favourite quotes:
"Do you know the difference between the clouds and the sky? If you do, you're lucky, because if you live in England, the two are pretty much synonymous."
"The Latin word for sausage was botulus, from which English gets two words. One of them is the lovely botuliform, which means sausage-shaped and is a more useful word than you might think. The other word is botulism."
"If you were caught stealing a loaf of bread in early Victorian Britain you were sent to Australia, where there was less bread but much more sunshine. This system was abolished in 1850 when word got back to Britain that Australia was, in fact, a lovely place to live and therefore didn't count as punishment."
I found myself wondering as to the scholarly provenance of some of his explanations, but he provides a bibliography and references, so I suppose I shall have to put my Wikipedia-esque "citation needed" thoughts to one side.
This is a really delightful book for about 10-15 minutes. You can dip in, learn a few things, have a chuckle at some of what Forsyth has to say, and carry on with your day. However, my commute is usually 30-60 minutes, and in that time the light and fluffy tone got on my nerves. A minor quibble perhaps, but one that meant this book dragged on far too long for me. I would quite happily have read something half the size.
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LibraryThing member Shirezu
As someone who really loves words and their meanings and histories I can't say enough how much I loved this book. I did not want it to end and now I want to find more books just like it. Some things I knew but I learned a lot. The joy is in finding them out so I won't give any away on here.
This
This
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book was great from start to finish and for anyone with a love of words it is a must-read. Show Less
LibraryThing member adpaton
Blogs are sooo previous decade and Finnegan’s Wake forever soured me toward stream of consciousness writing - however The Etymologicon, by English man of letters and brilliant blogger Mark Forsyth, aka The Inky Fool, encompasses both yet is, quite simply, brilliant.
He focuses on the connection
For example, Turkeys are so named because they resemble the helmeted Guinea Fowl which were imported by Turkish traders and so became known as ‘Turkeys’: since the American Turkey looked like and tasted like the Guinea Fowl, they were assumed to be the same bird, hence the name.
When people Talk Turkey however, it has nothing to do with the bird or with Turkish, but is connected with some amazingly unfunny 19th Century American joke regarding a Red Indian, a Turkey and a buzzard.
‘Talking cold turkey’ was even blunter and more direct, thus giving up an addiction became know as going ‘cold turkey’ – so cold turkey is not food, but giving someone the ‘cold shoulder’ originally was.
Fascinating stuff and impossible to stop once started because – as the title suggests – the interconnectivity of our language is circular and the only end is when, all too soon, the last page is reached.
He focuses on the connection
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between words in a meandering but entirely logical stream which is as entertaining as it is intriguing: like all great raconteurs – although this account is literary rather than verbal – the Inky Fool is erudite and witty, and sweeps his audience along with him. For example, Turkeys are so named because they resemble the helmeted Guinea Fowl which were imported by Turkish traders and so became known as ‘Turkeys’: since the American Turkey looked like and tasted like the Guinea Fowl, they were assumed to be the same bird, hence the name.
When people Talk Turkey however, it has nothing to do with the bird or with Turkish, but is connected with some amazingly unfunny 19th Century American joke regarding a Red Indian, a Turkey and a buzzard.
‘Talking cold turkey’ was even blunter and more direct, thus giving up an addiction became know as going ‘cold turkey’ – so cold turkey is not food, but giving someone the ‘cold shoulder’ originally was.
Fascinating stuff and impossible to stop once started because – as the title suggests – the interconnectivity of our language is circular and the only end is when, all too soon, the last page is reached.
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LibraryThing member the.ken.petersen
I have this book on my Kindle and I heard the original BBC series so; why do I feel the need to own it as an audio book too?
If you have yet to come across the Etymologicon, then you have a real treat awaiting you. Get it NOW! It doesn't matter whether it be in the original paper form, the e-book or
Each chapter follows a different strand through our beloved language and, whilst I am content to acknowledge my ignorance, I will not believe any of you who tells me that they knew all the intricate links in any chapter - and that includes aficionados, such as myself, who have read and heard the book on many occasions!
This audio version does not scimp, it covers the complete book on 6 CD's. I do wonder about some audio books; when you've listened once to a whodunnit, will you want to listen again? On the other hand, the Etymologicon is so packed with information that one can read it, several times and listen to the disc copy on multiple occasions and STILL not glean all the information that Mr Forsyth offers. If one is ever invited to a dinner party, given by a superior friend, then put part of this collection on your car's media player. I guarantee that, when you arrive, you will have a whole bunch of interesting facts to work into your conversation: indeed, I have invented the game of how many such facts one can introduce in a single evening (double points are awarded for the most esoteric!) Three players, in the know, can completely banjax a condescending host, with in minutes - try it!
If you have yet to come across the Etymologicon, then you have a real treat awaiting you. Get it NOW! It doesn't matter whether it be in the original paper form, the e-book or
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this audio book - they're all great. The Etymologicon describes itself as, "a circular stroll through the hidden connections of the English language". Sounds a bit grand, but the reality is a fun book that is packed with fascinating stories of the origins, and unexpected links, between English words. It started life as the Inky Fool blog, created by Mark Forsyth and evolved into a humorous, but educational, tome.Each chapter follows a different strand through our beloved language and, whilst I am content to acknowledge my ignorance, I will not believe any of you who tells me that they knew all the intricate links in any chapter - and that includes aficionados, such as myself, who have read and heard the book on many occasions!
This audio version does not scimp, it covers the complete book on 6 CD's. I do wonder about some audio books; when you've listened once to a whodunnit, will you want to listen again? On the other hand, the Etymologicon is so packed with information that one can read it, several times and listen to the disc copy on multiple occasions and STILL not glean all the information that Mr Forsyth offers. If one is ever invited to a dinner party, given by a superior friend, then put part of this collection on your car's media player. I guarantee that, when you arrive, you will have a whole bunch of interesting facts to work into your conversation: indeed, I have invented the game of how many such facts one can introduce in a single evening (double points are awarded for the most esoteric!) Three players, in the know, can completely banjax a condescending host, with in minutes - try it!
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LibraryThing member freelancer_frank
This is a book about historical connections in language. It has some interest and one big flaw. For me, the jaunty humour (which probably works better on the weblog that produced the book) quickly became tiresome.
LibraryThing member stuart10er
Entertaining short articles on word origins and how they are related to each other
LibraryThing member TobinElliott
This is a completely enjoyable stroll through the origins of hundreds of words, told in a conversational style, with lots of personality and wit.
Seriously, what's not to love about this?
And, as an added bonus, every time I go to some insipid party where they have the inevitable pumpernickel and
Seriously, what's not to love about this?
And, as an added bonus, every time I go to some insipid party where they have the inevitable pumpernickel and
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spinach dip, I can tell everyone that "pumpernickel" originally meant "the devil's fart," and it doesn't get any better than that. Show Less
LibraryThing member krazykiwi
Mark Forsyth’s Etymologicon is exactly the kind of smart funny distraction I needed after wading through the romance novel box set from hell. I’ve read this before, and it’s followup, but there’s so very much packed into them, that I can and probably will read them a dozen more times.
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review @Booklikes Show Less
LibraryThing member murderbydeath
This book took me FOREVER to finish, and not because it was bad, boring or dense. It took me forever because I couldn't read more than a paragraph without having to stop and read it aloud to MT, much to his amusement and increasing irritation, so I found myself avoiding it for stretches at a time
As he's gone for the weekend, my impulse to share was thwarted and I was able to power through the rest of the book. Truly, for word lovers out there, I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's so interesting and so easy to read; Forsyth breaks the book into sections, rather than chapters, but really it's more a free-association type of narrative. Talking about the origins of one word brings him to another, that leads him to another and so on. Did you know there's a direct etymological connection between the Old/New Testaments and a mans testicles? Sex and bread? Torpedoes and turtles? I didn't, but now I do.
Etymology might strike people as bland, but those people will have never read Forsyth; part of why I read so much of this out loud is because he's hilarious, especially in his footnotes (which are not overdone). If kids were allowed to learn with texts like these, we'd have a lot more smarter adults.
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so he wasn't tempted to hide the book somewhere, like the recycle bin.As he's gone for the weekend, my impulse to share was thwarted and I was able to power through the rest of the book. Truly, for word lovers out there, I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's so interesting and so easy to read; Forsyth breaks the book into sections, rather than chapters, but really it's more a free-association type of narrative. Talking about the origins of one word brings him to another, that leads him to another and so on. Did you know there's a direct etymological connection between the Old/New Testaments and a mans testicles? Sex and bread? Torpedoes and turtles? I didn't, but now I do.
Etymology might strike people as bland, but those people will have never read Forsyth; part of why I read so much of this out loud is because he's hilarious, especially in his footnotes (which are not overdone). If kids were allowed to learn with texts like these, we'd have a lot more smarter adults.
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LibraryThing member Treebeard_404
This is quite a fun read. I found myself both devouring pages and pages, but was also able to put it aside for a month (due to some high-priority reading that interrupted) and then pick it back up without missing a beat. The format and content lend themselves to whatever your preferred method of
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reading might be. I learned also quite a bit, which is a major plus. Show Less
LibraryThing member booktsunami
I really loved mark Forsyth's "the Elements of Eloquence"...hence I bought this book by him expecting more of the same erudition and humour. Unfortunately, I've found it a trifle tedious.....a bit too much of a good thing perhaps. I think much of it derives from his blog "The inky fool" and was
But there are some real gems there, for example:
"When Caxton built his printing press in the fifteenth century, he set it up to use sheepskin and not paper. When paper was finally introduced it was manufactured to fit the existing printing presses, and that’s the reason that both the text you’re reading and the book that contains it are dependent upon sheep".
"At the time that the Never Never was being named, the British had decided that a warm, sunny country with beautiful beaches was clearly a great spot for a penal colony. If you were caught stealing a loaf of bread in early Victorian Britain you were sent to Australia, where there was less bread but much more sunshine. This system was abolished in 1850 when word got back to Britain that Australia was, in fact, a lovely place to live and therefore didn’t count as a punishment. It was decided that lounging on the beach at Christmas did not produce what judges described as ‘a just measure of pain’."
"Parrot got verbed by Thomas Nashe at the end of the sixteenth century in the equally pointless but fantastically titled 'Have With You To Saffron Walden', an inexplicable work of incomprehensible invective."
"Magazines: Once upon a time there was an Arabic word khazana meaning to store up. From that they got makhzan meaning storehouse and its plural makhazin. That word sailed northwards across the Mediterranean (the middle of the earth) and became the Italian magazzino, which then proceeded by foot to France and became magasin, before jumping onto a ferry and getting into Britain as magazine, still retaining its original meaning of storehouse, usually military, hence the magazine in a gun."
"After all, Johnson didn’t write the first English dictionary. There were plenty before him and there have been plenty since. The chief recommendation of Johnson’s is that he defines a cough as: ‘A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity."
"Minor [ a contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary] had a lot of time on his hands, and also the advantage of being criminally insane, which is always a plus in lexicography. So he started reading. He read and read and read and took note after note after note, and sent the notes to Murray. .......It wasn’t until the 1890s that James Murray discovered that his star contributor, the man on whom his dictionary was based, was an insane murderer".
"As it is, Jesus tells his disciples, ‘This is not bread, this is human flesh. What’s more, it’s my flesh. Now eat it up like good little cannibals.’ It’s enough to make you curious. Christianity’s cannibalism is something so central to Western culture that it often escapes our notice."
"What words have the Celts contributed to the English language?....Celts? Next to nothing. There’s combe, meaning valley, which comes from cym. There’s tor, meaning rock, which comes from torr, the Celtic word for hill. There’s cross, which we seem to have got from Irish missionaries in the tenth century, rather than from the native Celts. And there’s … Well, there’s not much else. It depends on how you count things, really, and it’s always possible that words were there but not noted down. The Anglo-Saxons managed to occupy an island for hundreds of years and take almost no words from the people they defeated. ....We will never know how the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts really got on. Maybe it was a massacre, maybe it was a jolly party. The ages were too dark and history is too forgetful. Nor is it wise to be consumed by sorrow or anger. If you look back far enough everything is stolen and every country invaded. The Celts themselves had conquered the previous people of Britain in around 600 BC, and the Anglo-Saxons were about to get hit by the vicious Vikings, who would bring with them their own language and their own place-names."
"The internal arrangement of the Inns of Court was as Byzantine and incomprehensible as one would expect from a building devoted to the law, but basically there were the Readers, who were clever folk and sat in an Inner Sanctum separated from the rest of the students by a big bar. The lesser students would sit around reading and studying and dreaming of the great day when they would be called to the bar and allowed to plead a case like a proper lawyer. The situation was complicated by the fact that there used to be outer barristers and inner barristers who had a particular relationship with sheriffs at law, and you would probably have to study for a few years before you understood the bar system even partially,"
Ancient animals became fossilised, petrified and scattered. "The same has happened to gorm, feck, ruth and reck. They were all once real words. Now they are frozen for ever in–less phrases. Gorm (spelled all sorts of ways) was a Scandinavian word meaning sense or understanding........our current use age can be traced to Emily Bronte ...maybe there was a word "gorm" but Emily Brontë doesn’t mention it. So gormless got into one of the most famous novels ever written, ........Anyway, Carlyle used feckless but he never used the word feck, and so the one word lived and became famous, while the other vanished into a Celtic twilight.......If something is true, it’s the truth. If you rue your actions, you feel ruth. If you don’t rue your actions, you feel no ruth and that makes you ruthless. Ruth survived for quite a long time, and it’s uncertain as to why it died out in the end.
"In fact, when the Greeks named the zodiac all of the signs were living creatures. Libra, the odd one out, was added in by the Romans."
"About 30 per cent of English words come from French, though it depends, of course, on how you’re counting. This means that, though English is basically a Germanic language, we are, at least, one third romantic. ........Not all versions of Romanic were the same. There was the Romanic that had developed in Rome, another one in France, another in Spain, another in Romania. But Romanic became the catch-all term for all these languages and then for all the stories that were written in them."
"Shakespeare didn’t give a damn about geography. In The Tempest, Prospero is abducted from his palace in Milan and bundled down to the docks under cover of darkness. Seventy-four miles overnight is a good bit of bundling in the days before the Ferrari. Not that that bothered the Bard. He had people sailing from Verona and a sail-maker working in Bergamo, an Italian town that’s over a hundred miles from the nearest port".
"The first description of California was written in Spain in about 1510, which is odd because, at the time, no European had been to the western coast of the Americas. But fiction usually beats fact to the punch. The description was written by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo, and the reason that he was able to write it with such authority was that California was an entirely fictional place..........Of course, California was never actually an island, but owing to a mistake by an exploratory monk, European map-makers believed that it was an island from the sixteenth century up until about 1750"
"Myles Coverdale was an early Protestant who believed in principle that the Bible should be translated into English. He decided that, as nobody else seemed to be doing it, he had better get on with the job himself, and he didn’t let the tiny detail that he knew no Latin, Greek or Hebrew get in his way. This is the kind of can-do attitude that is sadly lacking in modern biblical scholarship."
"Cyberspace is out of control and filled with cybersquatters having cybersex with cyberpunks. This would make more sense if anybody actually knew what cyber meant, and the answer may come as a shock to cyberpunks, because cyber means controlled–indeed, it comes from the same root as governed."
"In fact, almost the only women who had jobs in Rome were the women who stood in front of brothels looking for customers. The Latin for standing in front of things is pro-stitutio. It was a way of earning a living, almost the only one for a girl, and the Latin for earning was merere. When a man earned a living he merited it, and became meritable. A veteran soldier who had retired to spend his money could proudly call himself emeritus, meaning that he had earned all he needed and retired, which is where we get Emeritus Professors. That’s because a soldier was a man. But when a girl earned a living she was a meretrix, and meretrix could mean only one thing: tart. And that’s why meretricious still means tarty."
"The leaves of buckwheat look very similar to the leaves of a beech tree. The German for beech is Buche and so buckwheat is really beechwheat."
Maybe it's unfair to judge Mark's work too hastily. But I would not recommend reading it on one go ....as I more or less have done (two goes actually). It would be much better taken in small controlled doses. But for me it's three stars.
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probably written as a series of essays over quite a long period. I think, sampled at weekly intervals is probably the best way to enjoy and appreciate these essays but to be read in a couple of sittings (as i have just done) is a bit of an overkill. Sure the material is fascinating ...though some of the leaps of logic strain the imagination. And sure, I have learned a lot. But each article really left my head swimming with the linguistic gymnastics and meaning changes.But there are some real gems there, for example:
"When Caxton built his printing press in the fifteenth century, he set it up to use sheepskin and not paper. When paper was finally introduced it was manufactured to fit the existing printing presses, and that’s the reason that both the text you’re reading and the book that contains it are dependent upon sheep".
"At the time that the Never Never was being named, the British had decided that a warm, sunny country with beautiful beaches was clearly a great spot for a penal colony. If you were caught stealing a loaf of bread in early Victorian Britain you were sent to Australia, where there was less bread but much more sunshine. This system was abolished in 1850 when word got back to Britain that Australia was, in fact, a lovely place to live and therefore didn’t count as a punishment. It was decided that lounging on the beach at Christmas did not produce what judges described as ‘a just measure of pain’."
"Parrot got verbed by Thomas Nashe at the end of the sixteenth century in the equally pointless but fantastically titled 'Have With You To Saffron Walden', an inexplicable work of incomprehensible invective."
"Magazines: Once upon a time there was an Arabic word khazana meaning to store up. From that they got makhzan meaning storehouse and its plural makhazin. That word sailed northwards across the Mediterranean (the middle of the earth) and became the Italian magazzino, which then proceeded by foot to France and became magasin, before jumping onto a ferry and getting into Britain as magazine, still retaining its original meaning of storehouse, usually military, hence the magazine in a gun."
"After all, Johnson didn’t write the first English dictionary. There were plenty before him and there have been plenty since. The chief recommendation of Johnson’s is that he defines a cough as: ‘A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity."
"Minor [ a contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary] had a lot of time on his hands, and also the advantage of being criminally insane, which is always a plus in lexicography. So he started reading. He read and read and read and took note after note after note, and sent the notes to Murray. .......It wasn’t until the 1890s that James Murray discovered that his star contributor, the man on whom his dictionary was based, was an insane murderer".
"As it is, Jesus tells his disciples, ‘This is not bread, this is human flesh. What’s more, it’s my flesh. Now eat it up like good little cannibals.’ It’s enough to make you curious. Christianity’s cannibalism is something so central to Western culture that it often escapes our notice."
"What words have the Celts contributed to the English language?....Celts? Next to nothing. There’s combe, meaning valley, which comes from cym. There’s tor, meaning rock, which comes from torr, the Celtic word for hill. There’s cross, which we seem to have got from Irish missionaries in the tenth century, rather than from the native Celts. And there’s … Well, there’s not much else. It depends on how you count things, really, and it’s always possible that words were there but not noted down. The Anglo-Saxons managed to occupy an island for hundreds of years and take almost no words from the people they defeated. ....We will never know how the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts really got on. Maybe it was a massacre, maybe it was a jolly party. The ages were too dark and history is too forgetful. Nor is it wise to be consumed by sorrow or anger. If you look back far enough everything is stolen and every country invaded. The Celts themselves had conquered the previous people of Britain in around 600 BC, and the Anglo-Saxons were about to get hit by the vicious Vikings, who would bring with them their own language and their own place-names."
"The internal arrangement of the Inns of Court was as Byzantine and incomprehensible as one would expect from a building devoted to the law, but basically there were the Readers, who were clever folk and sat in an Inner Sanctum separated from the rest of the students by a big bar. The lesser students would sit around reading and studying and dreaming of the great day when they would be called to the bar and allowed to plead a case like a proper lawyer. The situation was complicated by the fact that there used to be outer barristers and inner barristers who had a particular relationship with sheriffs at law, and you would probably have to study for a few years before you understood the bar system even partially,"
Ancient animals became fossilised, petrified and scattered. "The same has happened to gorm, feck, ruth and reck. They were all once real words. Now they are frozen for ever in–less phrases. Gorm (spelled all sorts of ways) was a Scandinavian word meaning sense or understanding........our current use age can be traced to Emily Bronte ...maybe there was a word "gorm" but Emily Brontë doesn’t mention it. So gormless got into one of the most famous novels ever written, ........Anyway, Carlyle used feckless but he never used the word feck, and so the one word lived and became famous, while the other vanished into a Celtic twilight.......If something is true, it’s the truth. If you rue your actions, you feel ruth. If you don’t rue your actions, you feel no ruth and that makes you ruthless. Ruth survived for quite a long time, and it’s uncertain as to why it died out in the end.
"In fact, when the Greeks named the zodiac all of the signs were living creatures. Libra, the odd one out, was added in by the Romans."
"About 30 per cent of English words come from French, though it depends, of course, on how you’re counting. This means that, though English is basically a Germanic language, we are, at least, one third romantic. ........Not all versions of Romanic were the same. There was the Romanic that had developed in Rome, another one in France, another in Spain, another in Romania. But Romanic became the catch-all term for all these languages and then for all the stories that were written in them."
"Shakespeare didn’t give a damn about geography. In The Tempest, Prospero is abducted from his palace in Milan and bundled down to the docks under cover of darkness. Seventy-four miles overnight is a good bit of bundling in the days before the Ferrari. Not that that bothered the Bard. He had people sailing from Verona and a sail-maker working in Bergamo, an Italian town that’s over a hundred miles from the nearest port".
"The first description of California was written in Spain in about 1510, which is odd because, at the time, no European had been to the western coast of the Americas. But fiction usually beats fact to the punch. The description was written by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo, and the reason that he was able to write it with such authority was that California was an entirely fictional place..........Of course, California was never actually an island, but owing to a mistake by an exploratory monk, European map-makers believed that it was an island from the sixteenth century up until about 1750"
"Myles Coverdale was an early Protestant who believed in principle that the Bible should be translated into English. He decided that, as nobody else seemed to be doing it, he had better get on with the job himself, and he didn’t let the tiny detail that he knew no Latin, Greek or Hebrew get in his way. This is the kind of can-do attitude that is sadly lacking in modern biblical scholarship."
"Cyberspace is out of control and filled with cybersquatters having cybersex with cyberpunks. This would make more sense if anybody actually knew what cyber meant, and the answer may come as a shock to cyberpunks, because cyber means controlled–indeed, it comes from the same root as governed."
"In fact, almost the only women who had jobs in Rome were the women who stood in front of brothels looking for customers. The Latin for standing in front of things is pro-stitutio. It was a way of earning a living, almost the only one for a girl, and the Latin for earning was merere. When a man earned a living he merited it, and became meritable. A veteran soldier who had retired to spend his money could proudly call himself emeritus, meaning that he had earned all he needed and retired, which is where we get Emeritus Professors. That’s because a soldier was a man. But when a girl earned a living she was a meretrix, and meretrix could mean only one thing: tart. And that’s why meretricious still means tarty."
"The leaves of buckwheat look very similar to the leaves of a beech tree. The German for beech is Buche and so buckwheat is really beechwheat."
Maybe it's unfair to judge Mark's work too hastily. But I would not recommend reading it on one go ....as I more or less have done (two goes actually). It would be much better taken in small controlled doses. But for me it's three stars.
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LibraryThing member qaphsiel
An utterly delightful and whimsical book that any appreciator of language and its history is sure to love.