View source for New Words for Old: Recycling Our Language for the Modern World by Caroline Taggart

{{infobox1
|title=New Words for Old: Recycling Our Language for the Modern World
|author=Caroline Taggart
|reviewer=John Lloyd
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Generally a fun look at how words have changed and adopted new, often technology-based, meanings.  It's not perfect but pretty much serves its purpose.
|rating=3.5
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Yes
|pages=192
|publisher=Michael O'Mara
|date=November 2015
|isbn=9781782434726
|website=http://www.carolinetaggart.co.uk/
|cover=Taggart_New
|aznuk=1782434720
|aznus=1782434720
}} 

I never declare myself off to have a 'kip', as I recall reading that it originally meant the same amount of sleeping – and activity – as happens in a whorehouse.  The word 'cleave' can mean either to split apart, or to connect together, and I'm sure there's another word that has completely changed its meaning from one end of things to another although I can't remember which.  Certainly, ''literally'' has tried its best to make a full switch through rampant misuse.  Such is the nature of our language – fluid both in spelling until moderately recently, and definitely in meaning.  This attempt at capturing a corner of the trivia/words/novelty market is interested in such tales from the etymological world – the way we have adapted old words for our own, modern and perhaps very different usages.  Certainly, having browsed it over a week, I can declare it a pretty strong attempt. 

There you go – 'browser'.  Such words just fall over one's lips without really being aware of it, and this one, which didn't just have a connection to books before it took on new life as a technological term, isn't even in these pages.  (I did find some other instances where things could have been taken further – ''loophole'' ends with the legal sense, without reaching the literary sense so often seen in ''blockbuster'' films.)  But a lot is in here, and will appeal to the fan of words and their usage, and trivia.  ''Mall'' comes from a croquet-type game that will never be seen in many shopping centres again.  A ''quiz'' was originally something eccentric.  A Roman Catholic saint invented the ''android''.  It's all ''phreaky'' stuff. 

Some of the said stuff I had to question in my mind, before deeming the author as more knowledgeable than me, and moving on.  She says we have ''cataracts'' in our eyes not just from the waterfalls, but from the ocular disruption a portcullis gives us; I thought we have ''juggernauts'' on our roads due to Jagannath the Hindi god, but she derives it more from the inexorable motion of the cart he is paraded on and not directly from his name.  She also has ''bug'' in the insect term as being Americanised, when it feels more universal to me. 

But like I say, this author knows her ''bulbs'' – sorry, onions.  For those who revel in where ''Muzak'' came from, or how goldfish and soldiers both live in ''tanks'', or the different meanings of ''tablet'' through ages, this will go down with no sugaring.   Most of the words are common (''nutraceutical'' aside, perhaps), and whether they're portmanteau words, bastard hybrids of both Greek and Latin (as television was once famously declared to be), or something related to a modern idea you have no interest in (tweeting, in my case) the book will please.  I just was left thinking a second edition (with my ''browser'' included) will be taken to get it right.  In ending with the source of colour associations – yellow as cowardly, for instance – Taggart has red flags as Communist and revolutionary, which is a westernised idea nowhere near the reason so many Islamic countries have red flags.  This book taught me a lot, but it might be back to school for a revision before it's perfect. 

I must thank the publishers for my review copy.  We also have a review of [[Misadventures in the English Language by Caroline Taggart]]. 

Having proven that our language is evolving, it's time to check on what's endangered about it – try [[The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language by Mark Forsyth]]. 

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