132,585
edits
Changes
The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth (view source)
Revision as of 12:30, 28 February 2018
, 12:30, 28 February 2018no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=The Etymologicon
|sort=Etymologicon
|author=Mark Forsyth
|reviewer=Zoe PageMorris
|genre=Trivia
|rating=5
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=978-1848313071
|pages=288
|publisher=Icon
|date=November 2011
|summary=A witty, hilarious and all round wonderful look at the origins of words. And who doesn't like words?
|cover=1848313071
|aznuk=1848313071
|aznus=B005SZ0VXS
}}
It's a naughty book because it behaves like a soap opera with a cliff hanger in almost every section. Except, unlike with a soap where you have to wait a day or a week to find out what happens next, here the answer is on the next page and the impulse to read just one more is too great to resist until it’s lunch time and you realise you’ve spent all morning reading and not actually done any work yet.
This is an extremely chatty book in a ''you’ll never guess what...'' kind of way. It’s not overly familiar, like a stranger sharing their stories of piles with you, but more like a good friend or gossip magazine columnist filling you in on the news. It’s self-depreciating deprecating in places, but that just makes it even more cute and fun to read. And it’s chock full of information too. I didn’t know half the stuff it mentioned though I had heard several of the myths being debunked, and since I’d oft suspected most weren’t true, I’m thrilled that I now have the evidence to confirm this. It’s not all remote, either – some things I’ve heard before, from other language books or from linguistics courses, reappears which reassured me that the new things I’m reading are also true, if you see what I mean, and not just the creative imaginations of a witty writer. It’s a combination that works well, the new and the familiar, the reasonable and the facts that will cause a double take. You may already know that
''Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo''
Combine this with [[Toujours Tingo by Adam Jacot de Boinod]] and you'll have more trivia than you'll know what to do with and/or be a hit at literary pub quizzes, should such a thing exist.
{{amazontext|amazon=1848313071}} {{waterstonestextamazonUStext|waterstonesamazon=8396681B005SZ0VXS}}
{{commenthead}}
[[Category:Popular Science]]