Catalog Search Results
Author
Publication Date
2019
Language
English
Description
Where do our everyday words come from? The bagel you eat for breakfast, the bumf you have to wade through at the office, and the bus that takes you home again: we use these words without thinking about their origins or how their meanings have changed over time. Simon Horobin takes the reader on a journey through a typical day, showing how the words we use to describe routine activities - getting up, going to work, eating meals - have surprisingly...
Author
Publisher
Icon Books
Publication Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
"The Etymologicon is an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language. What is the actual connection between disgruntled and gruntled? What links church organs to organised crime, California to the Caliphate, or brackets to codpieces? Mark Forsyth's riotous celebration of the idiosyncratic and sometimes absurd connections between words is a classic of its kind....
Author
Publisher
Cobblestone Pub
Publication Date
2003
Language
English
Description
Each word or phrase used today had a beginning -- a reason for being coined. Words travel through time and evolve, taking on new characteristics, new meanings, and fascinating tales of people, places, and events. Applaud, for example, goes back to ancient Rome, when an actor would turn to the audience and demand "Plaudite!" ("Clap!") This fun book contains 750 word origins written in a witty short-story style. Many of the words are accompanied by...
Author
Publication Date
2025
Language
English
Description
"A brief and humorous 500-year history of the Simplified Spelling Movement from advocates like Ben Franklin, C. S. Lewis, and Mark Twain to texts and Twitter"-- Provided by publisher.
Why does the G in George sound different from the G in gorge? Why does C begin both case and cease? And why is it funny when a philologist faints, but not polight to laf about it? Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to write in English has, at one time or another,...
Author
Series
Word Travelers volume 2
Publication Date
[2022]
Language
English
Description
Eddie and MJ use their awesome enchanted book to journey to Mexico, discover how Mexican culture has influences the English language, learn about local customs, and solve an exciting mystery.
Author
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publication Date
[2024]
Language
English
Description
"Lost origins of words revealed. We like to recount that goodbye started out as "god be with you," that whiskey comes from the Gaelic for "water of life," or that avocado originated as the Aztec word for "testicle." But there are many words with origins unknown, disputed, or so buried in old journals that they may as well be lost to the general public. In Origin Uncertain: Unraveling the Mysteries of Etymology, eminent etymologist Anatoly Liberman...