The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English LanguageThis perfect gift for readers, writers, and literature majors alike unearths the quirks of the English language. For example, do you know why a mortgage is literally a “death pledge”? Why guns have girls’ names? Why “salt” is related to “soldier”? Discover the answers to all of these etymological questions and more in this fascinating book for fans of of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. 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 connects to whaling in Nantucket; and what, precisely, the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening. This witty book will awake the linguist in you and illuminate the hidden meanings behind common words and phrases, tracing their evolution through all of their surprising paths throughout history. |
Contents
| 9 | |
Sausage Poison in Your Face | 23 |
Concealed Farts | 37 |
Butterflies of the World | 50 |
The Villains of the Language | 57 |
Organic Organised Organs | 71 |
Beastly Foreigners | 84 |
Bogeys | 98 |
Fat Gunhilda | 153 |
The Iliad | 159 |
Hoax Bodies | 166 |
The SedgeStrewn Stream and Globalisation | 176 |
Called to the Bar | 182 |
Fossilless | 188 |
Worms and their Turnings | 194 |
Beards | 201 |
StarSpangled Drinking Songs | 111 |
Insulting Names | 124 |
Peter Pan | 127 |
Papa Was a Saxum Volutum | 133 |
Magazines | 140 |
Autopeotomy | 146 |
Sandwich Islands | 208 |
The Hash Guys | 223 |
Halcyon Days | 236 |
Death Pledges | 250 |
The Cream of the Sources | 277 |
Other editions - View all
The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the ... Mark Forsyth No preview available - 2016 |
The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the ... Mark Forsyth No preview available - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
American ancient Greek antanaclasis beard became bison blank body Bogey botulinum toxin bread Britain British buck buff Buffalo bison buffalo Buffalo buffalo butterfly Celts century chap Christian codpiece comes course crap decided to call dictionary Dutch Edward Buncombe English language English words etymologically exactly example fact famous fart Felix Walker fellow finger folk etymology French German Halcyon happened idea invented island Ismailis Italian Jerry Baldwin Jesus John joke King known Latin word lavatory lived London look means meant medieval Minor never Old English once original Oxford English Dictionary Pensax Peter phrase placebo poem prison probably Proto-Indo-European realised reason reference Romans Saint Pantaleon salt Shell shì shì shortened song sort SPAM Starbuck started stone story strange term theory there's things Thomas Crapper took turkey turn wanted worm write wrote