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The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of 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?
The Etymologicon springs from Mark Forsyth's Inky Fool blog on the strange connections between words. It's an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language, taking in monks and monkeys, film buffs and buffaloes, and explaining precisely what the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening.
275 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2011
1762 people are currently reading
18416 people want to read
About the author
Mark Forsyth
22 books920 followersMark Forsyth is a writer, journalist and blogger. Every job he’s ever had, whether as a ghost-writer or proof-reader or copy-writer, has been to do with words. He started The Inky Fool blog in 2009 and now writes a post almost every day. The blog has received worldwide attention and enjoys an average of 4,000 hits per week.
Mr. Forsyth currently resides in London.
Mr. Forsyth currently resides in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,542 reviews
March 9, 2020
This is an entertaining survey of etymological examples, written in a breezy style, and constructed according to a clever rule: there is an etymological link between every chapter and the next, and the last chapter links to the first. Hence the title "a circular stroll." It is also a useful bathroom book, ideal for keeping the mind busy while the body is otherwise engaged.
But Forsyth tries too hard. He is a genuinely amusing writer, but by the end of the book I began to sense that he really didn't have faith in his subject, that he was convinced the only way he could prevent boredom in the reader was by throwing in a Pythonesque witticism every couple of lines.
If he had trusted both his own style and his subject matter, he could have written a better book.
August 9, 2013
Words are the strangest of things. And that is because they aren’t really things at all. Not things, at least, with fixed and final essences. They change and they morph and they even turned into their own opposites in ways that ‘things’ generally don’t. Well, unless they are caterpillars and butterflies – butterflies even rate a mention in this wonderful and endlessly amusing book. You are going to have to get hold of this, you know.
We’ve become fooled, you see, by the OED – the fact you can ‘look up what a word means’ tends to fool us into believing that words have meanings, when in fact they basically get their meanings from their relation to all other words in the language. Another book I’m reading at the moment says that words are empty jars which we fill with meaning as we become more aware of the world.
There was a time when I was convinced that ‘candid’ would come to mean ‘hidden’. This was because virtually the only use of the word in the modern world was associated with the phrase ‘smile, you’re on candid camera’ and the main fact about being on candid camera was the reveal at the end, when it was made clear that there was a hidden camera filming you. So, a candid camera was a hidden camera – this now is one of the meanings of the word in the OED. It would be interesting to test people (of a certain age) to see if they would be more likely to say candid meant hidden than frank.
You know, frank gets its meaning here from the idea of belonging to the Franks and therefore being free – in the same way that slave originally meant being in servitude due to being a Slav.
I’ve a feeling that even the historical meanings of words we don’t know about impact on our understanding of their current meanings. I know that seems daft – but take the word develop, which comes from the Old French for ‘to unfold’ and how develop means something quite different in English than change. As this book tells us – there are no true synonyms in any language – how could there possibly be?
Did you know that a trolley in Greek is metaphor? Did you know that cliché is a printing term and is onomatopoeic? Why does T S Eliot translate the call of the rooster in The Waste Land into Italian? Co co rico co co rico? English roosters don’t say that at all…
V K Ramachandran makes the fascinating point that certain words have their meanings due to our universal synesthesia. I can’t remember the exact words he makes up, but he talks about a pretend language from Africa which has words for an object with pointy spikes and another object with soft, round curves. Why is it that we are much more likely to guess the word zizek belongs to the sharp object and bomba to the soft one? I mean, this is a language that doesn’t even exist. And is this part of the reason why Žižek is the kind of philosopher he is? Pointy and sharp, rather than soft and curvy?
The fact that there is a kind of rightness to words, a rightness to their sound and their feel in your mouth, is a very odd idea. Saussure talks about the arbitrary nature of the sign, but there are limits to how arbitrary the sign can really be.
My favourite swearword in Italian is cacasentenza – a boring and pedantic person – but literally ‘one who shits in sentences’. Caca is one of those almost synesthetic words. It means the same in English as it does in Italian, although in English we say Cack or cacky. I’ve often wondered if khaki (which the OED defines as dust coloured, brownish yellow) also comes in a roundabout way from excrement?
There are jokes in this book too – my favourite was the one about Bach and his twenty children, which I’ve now told twice and will tell many more times, I suspect. There are also little asides that almost invariably made me smile – if not laugh in that particularly pleasing way that a clever and witty aside invariably forces me to do. This whole book (except perhaps for the introduction which people might find a little over-done – or overwrought) is a pure delight.
You need this book. It is something that is good for your soul. It will do more than just make you smile. It will also get you to make that sound we all make when we learn something that seems almost too good to be true. You know the one: a mixture of ‘get out of here’ and ‘oh, yes!’ Pure magic.
We’ve become fooled, you see, by the OED – the fact you can ‘look up what a word means’ tends to fool us into believing that words have meanings, when in fact they basically get their meanings from their relation to all other words in the language. Another book I’m reading at the moment says that words are empty jars which we fill with meaning as we become more aware of the world.
There was a time when I was convinced that ‘candid’ would come to mean ‘hidden’. This was because virtually the only use of the word in the modern world was associated with the phrase ‘smile, you’re on candid camera’ and the main fact about being on candid camera was the reveal at the end, when it was made clear that there was a hidden camera filming you. So, a candid camera was a hidden camera – this now is one of the meanings of the word in the OED. It would be interesting to test people (of a certain age) to see if they would be more likely to say candid meant hidden than frank.
You know, frank gets its meaning here from the idea of belonging to the Franks and therefore being free – in the same way that slave originally meant being in servitude due to being a Slav.
I’ve a feeling that even the historical meanings of words we don’t know about impact on our understanding of their current meanings. I know that seems daft – but take the word develop, which comes from the Old French for ‘to unfold’ and how develop means something quite different in English than change. As this book tells us – there are no true synonyms in any language – how could there possibly be?
Did you know that a trolley in Greek is metaphor? Did you know that cliché is a printing term and is onomatopoeic? Why does T S Eliot translate the call of the rooster in The Waste Land into Italian? Co co rico co co rico? English roosters don’t say that at all…
V K Ramachandran makes the fascinating point that certain words have their meanings due to our universal synesthesia. I can’t remember the exact words he makes up, but he talks about a pretend language from Africa which has words for an object with pointy spikes and another object with soft, round curves. Why is it that we are much more likely to guess the word zizek belongs to the sharp object and bomba to the soft one? I mean, this is a language that doesn’t even exist. And is this part of the reason why Žižek is the kind of philosopher he is? Pointy and sharp, rather than soft and curvy?
The fact that there is a kind of rightness to words, a rightness to their sound and their feel in your mouth, is a very odd idea. Saussure talks about the arbitrary nature of the sign, but there are limits to how arbitrary the sign can really be.
My favourite swearword in Italian is cacasentenza – a boring and pedantic person – but literally ‘one who shits in sentences’. Caca is one of those almost synesthetic words. It means the same in English as it does in Italian, although in English we say Cack or cacky. I’ve often wondered if khaki (which the OED defines as dust coloured, brownish yellow) also comes in a roundabout way from excrement?
There are jokes in this book too – my favourite was the one about Bach and his twenty children, which I’ve now told twice and will tell many more times, I suspect. There are also little asides that almost invariably made me smile – if not laugh in that particularly pleasing way that a clever and witty aside invariably forces me to do. This whole book (except perhaps for the introduction which people might find a little over-done – or overwrought) is a pure delight.
You need this book. It is something that is good for your soul. It will do more than just make you smile. It will also get you to make that sound we all make when we learn something that seems almost too good to be true. You know the one: a mixture of ‘get out of here’ and ‘oh, yes!’ Pure magic.
May 20, 2015
I’m sorry to say that as time went on I found this book very boring. It is written in a serpentine fashion, with the origin of one word slipping kind of seamlessly into the origin of the next, and it is written in a rather chummy down-the-pub kind of language ”when John grew up he began telling people that they were naughty and chucking them in a river. Now if you or I tried a stunt like that we’d be brought up by the police pretty sharpish. But John got away with it and, if you can believe it, was considered rather holy for all his attempted drowning. Chaps at the time called him John the Baptist......”
You get the flavour. But, but, but...... I am very alone in my disparagement. The reviews from most people have been glowing, with an average GR rating of 4.25, so don’t let my curmudgeonly views put you off.
I did find the author had some flashes of brilliance, and snips like the following particularly interested me.
*Bazil II – a Byzantine Emperior who reigned from 976-1025 ruthlessly conquered the peoples of southern Bulgaria. In the north of the country they were subjudicated by the Holy Roman Empire. “So many Slavs were defeated and oppressed that the word Slav itself became interchangeable with forced labour, and that is where we get the world Slave."
*In 1996 Jim Kardach developed a system that would allow mobile telephones to communicate with computers. At the time he was reading a book about Vikings, set in the reign of King Harald I of Denmark, or “Bluetooth” as he was commonly known. (He was given this moniker because he had blue teeth, or perhaps black teeth.) Kardach nicknamed his invention “Bluetooth”, and eventually the name stuck.
*There are some words where we have lost the use of the basic word, and now just use its opposite.
Feck................. Feckless
Reck................ Reckless
Ruth................ Ruthless
Exorably........... Inexorably
*”Salt was infinitely more valuable in the ancient world than it is today. To the Romans salt was white, tasty gold. Legionaries were given a special stipend just to buy themselves salt and make their food bearable, this was called the “salarium” and it’s where we get the English world “Salary”, which is really just “salt-money.”
All in all though I can’t recommend this book. I read it at bedtime, and it took me forever. Far from being the sort of book which kept me reading greedily into the wee hours, night after night I would find that two pages would knock me out like a sleeping pill.
You get the flavour. But, but, but...... I am very alone in my disparagement. The reviews from most people have been glowing, with an average GR rating of 4.25, so don’t let my curmudgeonly views put you off.
I did find the author had some flashes of brilliance, and snips like the following particularly interested me.
*Bazil II – a Byzantine Emperior who reigned from 976-1025 ruthlessly conquered the peoples of southern Bulgaria. In the north of the country they were subjudicated by the Holy Roman Empire. “So many Slavs were defeated and oppressed that the word Slav itself became interchangeable with forced labour, and that is where we get the world Slave."
*In 1996 Jim Kardach developed a system that would allow mobile telephones to communicate with computers. At the time he was reading a book about Vikings, set in the reign of King Harald I of Denmark, or “Bluetooth” as he was commonly known. (He was given this moniker because he had blue teeth, or perhaps black teeth.) Kardach nicknamed his invention “Bluetooth”, and eventually the name stuck.
*There are some words where we have lost the use of the basic word, and now just use its opposite.
Feck................. Feckless
Reck................ Reckless
Ruth................ Ruthless
Exorably........... Inexorably
*”Salt was infinitely more valuable in the ancient world than it is today. To the Romans salt was white, tasty gold. Legionaries were given a special stipend just to buy themselves salt and make their food bearable, this was called the “salarium” and it’s where we get the English world “Salary”, which is really just “salt-money.”
All in all though I can’t recommend this book. I read it at bedtime, and it took me forever. Far from being the sort of book which kept me reading greedily into the wee hours, night after night I would find that two pages would knock me out like a sleeping pill.
November 2, 2015
There can be few better recommendations for any book than that you continuously feel the need to read excerpts out to those around you, no matter what they are doing (or what else they are trying to read themselves). "Oh, this one is great."; "Just this one and I'll stop."; "Ah, wait, this one is really good too.". I've only felt the need to do this with two books this year — this one because I was really enjoying it, the other because it was just so ridiculous in places.
The Etymologicon is a book of words. Well, technically all books are books of words (except picture books), but this one is about words, words and phrases. The origins of words more specifically. Each chapter digs into the origin of a word or phrase, starting with the phrase "a turn up for the books", and exploring it's meaning, it's origin, other words or phrases that share the same origins and wandering around in a sort of a rambling conversation that is interesting, funny, and by chance also educational. Somehow, like that word game in the newspaper, Forsyth starts the chapter with one word and manages to wind the conversation through to end on another, explaining his train of thought as he goes. This final word, then becomes the starting word for the next chapter.
Some of the chapters about two-thirds of the way through feel a little short and rushed, but in the main each chapter gave me something to annoy Louise with. The final chapter contains the clever twist-in-the-tail, ending as it does with the start phrase of the first chapter. Neatly closing the loop.
A short review, because I really can't think of much I didn't like about this book, so my complaints are minimal. Absolutely recommended even if you have only ever had a passing wonder about language and where some of our more esoteric parts of that language come from.
The Etymologicon is a book of words. Well, technically all books are books of words (except picture books), but this one is about words, words and phrases. The origins of words more specifically. Each chapter digs into the origin of a word or phrase, starting with the phrase "a turn up for the books", and exploring it's meaning, it's origin, other words or phrases that share the same origins and wandering around in a sort of a rambling conversation that is interesting, funny, and by chance also educational. Somehow, like that word game in the newspaper, Forsyth starts the chapter with one word and manages to wind the conversation through to end on another, explaining his train of thought as he goes. This final word, then becomes the starting word for the next chapter.
Some of the chapters about two-thirds of the way through feel a little short and rushed, but in the main each chapter gave me something to annoy Louise with. The final chapter contains the clever twist-in-the-tail, ending as it does with the start phrase of the first chapter. Neatly closing the loop.
A short review, because I really can't think of much I didn't like about this book, so my complaints are minimal. Absolutely recommended even if you have only ever had a passing wonder about language and where some of our more esoteric parts of that language come from.
July 27, 2015
A quite wonderful little book.
This got onto my long-list because of these glowing reviews from James, Nikki and Paul.
As James says:
Did you know that avocados are testicles? And we're all part of the human gene chicken? And that if you called a Nazi a Nazi they would beat you up? And that the Bluetooth on your phone is a Viking?
I read this on my lunchbreak, devouring the bitesize chapters along with my canteen spam'n'chips... and I couldn't wait to get home and tell my wife the funny little snipped that had stuck in my mind that day.
Each mini-chapter delves into the amusing anecdotes that lay behind everyday words, and end by linking that word on to a new word which will be the focus of the next chapter.
Great idea - flawless execution - five stars from me!
This got onto my long-list because of these glowing reviews from James, Nikki and Paul.
As James says:
There can be few better recommendations for any book than that you continuously feel the need to read excepts out to those around you, no matter what they are doing (or what else they are trying to read themselves). "Oh, this one is great."; "Just this one and I'll stop."; "Ah, wait, this one is really good too."I did the same myself, at length.
Did you know that avocados are testicles? And we're all part of the human gene chicken? And that if you called a Nazi a Nazi they would beat you up? And that the Bluetooth on your phone is a Viking?
I read this on my lunchbreak, devouring the bitesize chapters along with my canteen spam'n'chips... and I couldn't wait to get home and tell my wife the funny little snipped that had stuck in my mind that day.
Each mini-chapter delves into the amusing anecdotes that lay behind everyday words, and end by linking that word on to a new word which will be the focus of the next chapter.
Great idea - flawless execution - five stars from me!
November 10, 2011
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 book was great from start to finish and for anyone with a love of words it is a must-read.
This book was great from start to finish and for anyone with a love of words it is a must-read.
June 12, 2020
If you are hungry for a feast of mildly interesting linguistic factoids with which to gorge yourself and potentially vomit all over everyone around you, never fear - this book offers a bounteous buffet. In the introduction, Forsyth admits that the reason the book exists is to give him an outlet for all of his rambling and useless etymological knowledge, so that he need not continue to torment acquaintances with it. "Unlike me," he says, "a book could be left snugly on the bedside table or beside the lavatory: opened at will and closed at will."
Much as I have tried, I've never succeeded in eliciting anything other than barely-patient looks when I've launched into "did you know that 'salary' comes from a word meaning 'salt'?"-type pedantry. Someday I will meet someone who cares! In the meantime, this book helped me build up my trivia arsenal (a word which, Forsyth tells me, comes from the Arsenale di Venezia, a dock in Renaissance-era Venice where ships were built and repaired).
The scope of this book is fairly broad; a lot is crammed into these 250 engrossing pages. Many of my personal Greatest Hits of Etymology can be found here:
* Every meaning of the word "check" in English can be traced back to its meaning in chess, an old Persian game called "shahs" (kings, of course), which ended with the phrase "shah mat" (the king is dead; filtered down to English as "checkmate").
* We sing "do-re-mi" etc. because of an old song about St. John that went "Ut queant laxis / resonare fibris / Mira gestorum / famuli tuorum..." etc., with a melody where each opening syllable climbed the scale one tone at a time. "Ut" was later changed to "do", for "domine", because it sounds ridiculous to hold a note singing "uuuuuuuuhhhhhtttt".
* "Hocus pocus" is a mockery of the Latin phrase "Hoc est corpus meum", this is my body, which Catholics believed actually physically transformed a hunk of bread into the corpse of Jesus.
* "Assassin" is related to the word "hashish", in reference to a medieval cult of hitmen so proficient and determined that everyone assumed they were all on dope.
I had come across these etymologies before (it seems I've read a lot of these types of books over the years), and found them fascinating, and so reading this was a welcome chance to groove to the oldies once again.
The Etymologicon doesn't just cover familiar ground, however. There are plenty of smash-hit new singles in here as well. (New-to-me, anyhow.) For instance, I never knew that the "rolling stone" which proverbially gathers no moss is actually a gardening implement, a rolling-stone, used to make your yard nice and flat. Bob Dylan sounds much less hip when you realize he was singing about gardening.
Another one I liked: the term "Nazi" was a German insult long before any Nationalsozialisten showed up. It was a nickname for "Ignatius", a common Bavarian name, and everyone knew Bavarians were ignorant hicks. Nazis therefore really hated being called Nazis. Forsyth compares the situation to a hypothetical right-wing party that called itself "Red States for the Next America" - obviously, everyone else would call them the RedNex.
And furthermore: "testifying" may actually refer to putting your hand on your own (or someone else's) testicles, to ensure - I don't know - that you have a dudely, and therefore truthful, disposition? I suppose that might help to explain why for much of history women weren't allowed to testify in court...
And there are so many more. Film "buffs" originate from "buffalo", computer "bugs" refer to the "bogeyman", the term "cyberpunk" etymologically means "well-governed homosexual", and the oil company Shell really did go into business initially to sell seashells (possibly by the seashore).
This review barely scratches the surface. This is one of the best, most extensive, and by far the most humorous, etymology books I've read. Your friends will hate you for it. Highly recommended.
Much as I have tried, I've never succeeded in eliciting anything other than barely-patient looks when I've launched into "did you know that 'salary' comes from a word meaning 'salt'?"-type pedantry. Someday I will meet someone who cares! In the meantime, this book helped me build up my trivia arsenal (a word which, Forsyth tells me, comes from the Arsenale di Venezia, a dock in Renaissance-era Venice where ships were built and repaired).
The scope of this book is fairly broad; a lot is crammed into these 250 engrossing pages. Many of my personal Greatest Hits of Etymology can be found here:
* Every meaning of the word "check" in English can be traced back to its meaning in chess, an old Persian game called "shahs" (kings, of course), which ended with the phrase "shah mat" (the king is dead; filtered down to English as "checkmate").
* We sing "do-re-mi" etc. because of an old song about St. John that went "Ut queant laxis / resonare fibris / Mira gestorum / famuli tuorum..." etc., with a melody where each opening syllable climbed the scale one tone at a time. "Ut" was later changed to "do", for "domine", because it sounds ridiculous to hold a note singing "uuuuuuuuhhhhhtttt".
* "Hocus pocus" is a mockery of the Latin phrase "Hoc est corpus meum", this is my body, which Catholics believed actually physically transformed a hunk of bread into the corpse of Jesus.
* "Assassin" is related to the word "hashish", in reference to a medieval cult of hitmen so proficient and determined that everyone assumed they were all on dope.
I had come across these etymologies before (it seems I've read a lot of these types of books over the years), and found them fascinating, and so reading this was a welcome chance to groove to the oldies once again.
The Etymologicon doesn't just cover familiar ground, however. There are plenty of smash-hit new singles in here as well. (New-to-me, anyhow.) For instance, I never knew that the "rolling stone" which proverbially gathers no moss is actually a gardening implement, a rolling-stone, used to make your yard nice and flat. Bob Dylan sounds much less hip when you realize he was singing about gardening.
Another one I liked: the term "Nazi" was a German insult long before any Nationalsozialisten showed up. It was a nickname for "Ignatius", a common Bavarian name, and everyone knew Bavarians were ignorant hicks. Nazis therefore really hated being called Nazis. Forsyth compares the situation to a hypothetical right-wing party that called itself "Red States for the Next America" - obviously, everyone else would call them the RedNex.
And furthermore: "testifying" may actually refer to putting your hand on your own (or someone else's) testicles, to ensure - I don't know - that you have a dudely, and therefore truthful, disposition? I suppose that might help to explain why for much of history women weren't allowed to testify in court...
And there are so many more. Film "buffs" originate from "buffalo", computer "bugs" refer to the "bogeyman", the term "cyberpunk" etymologically means "well-governed homosexual", and the oil company Shell really did go into business initially to sell seashells (possibly by the seashore).
This review barely scratches the surface. This is one of the best, most extensive, and by far the most humorous, etymology books I've read. Your friends will hate you for it. Highly recommended.
May 16, 2016
I love this book.
[love (v.) Old English lufian "to love, cherish, show love to; delight in, approve," from Proto-Germanic *lubojan (cognates: Old High German lubon, German lieben), from root of love (n.). Related: Loved; loving. ]
Right from the beginning it took off in a delightfully pedantic direction, with a casual encounter in a cafe turning from innocent etymological question into an explanation of the history and origin of every word ever, spawning the idea for this book.
[pedantic (adj.) formed in English c. 1600, from pedant + -ic.
pedant (n.) 1580s, "schoolmaster," from Middle French pédant (1560s) or directly from Italian pedante, literally "teacher, schoolmaster," of uncertain origin, apparently an alteration of Late Latin paedagogantem (nominative paedagogans), present participle of paedagogare (see pedagogue). Meaning "person who trumpets minor points of learning" first recorded 1590s.]
OK that's enough of that, or this review will be as long as the book, but not nearly as entertaining, because my etymological knowledge is not nearly as comprehensive and inexhaustible as Forsyth's, and his wry humor is just on point, which made it a pure pleasure of a read. He makes smart jokes about the connections and unknown meanings of words, and shows how language has changed and evolved over time, and how what we're saying isn't quite what we USED to be saying.
Forsyth is a "person who trumpets minor points of learning" and makes it fun and educational and interesting. I want more. I wish this book was twice as long, or there were a series of them.
Brilliant.
[love (v.) Old English lufian "to love, cherish, show love to; delight in, approve," from Proto-Germanic *lubojan (cognates: Old High German lubon, German lieben), from root of love (n.). Related: Loved; loving. ]
Right from the beginning it took off in a delightfully pedantic direction, with a casual encounter in a cafe turning from innocent etymological question into an explanation of the history and origin of every word ever, spawning the idea for this book.
[pedantic (adj.) formed in English c. 1600, from pedant + -ic.
pedant (n.) 1580s, "schoolmaster," from Middle French pédant (1560s) or directly from Italian pedante, literally "teacher, schoolmaster," of uncertain origin, apparently an alteration of Late Latin paedagogantem (nominative paedagogans), present participle of paedagogare (see pedagogue). Meaning "person who trumpets minor points of learning" first recorded 1590s.]
OK that's enough of that, or this review will be as long as the book, but not nearly as entertaining, because my etymological knowledge is not nearly as comprehensive and inexhaustible as Forsyth's, and his wry humor is just on point, which made it a pure pleasure of a read. He makes smart jokes about the connections and unknown meanings of words, and shows how language has changed and evolved over time, and how what we're saying isn't quite what we USED to be saying.
Forsyth is a "person who trumpets minor points of learning" and makes it fun and educational and interesting. I want more. I wish this book was twice as long, or there were a series of them.
Brilliant.
December 3, 2017
This is like stand-up comedy about etymology. I absolutely adored it. The book had me laughing within the first five minutes, and from there I was frequently giggling with quite a few bouts of raucous laughter.
There is no real discussion of the science of etymology like you would find in McWhorter’s books, but the same amount of passion is there. It is the most aptly named work of nonfiction- it really is a circular stroll. One thought about a word flows seamlessly to the next and all the sudden you realize that while the discussion was about Pocahontas, you are know learning that, etymologically, pumpernickel means “devil fart.”
I listened to the audiobook which was marvelously performed, but I did find that if my mind began wandering on the “farty” origins of the word petard, then I would lose my place in the book and have to go back about 30 seconds and regain my listening composure- it was that fast paced.
I highly recommend this book for anyone that wants a good laugh, lovers of language (and you are all bookish people, so I assume this applies to all of you), and to those people that love knowing all the weird and strange tidbits of information.
There is no real discussion of the science of etymology like you would find in McWhorter’s books, but the same amount of passion is there. It is the most aptly named work of nonfiction- it really is a circular stroll. One thought about a word flows seamlessly to the next and all the sudden you realize that while the discussion was about Pocahontas, you are know learning that, etymologically, pumpernickel means “devil fart.”
I listened to the audiobook which was marvelously performed, but I did find that if my mind began wandering on the “farty” origins of the word petard, then I would lose my place in the book and have to go back about 30 seconds and regain my listening composure- it was that fast paced.
I highly recommend this book for anyone that wants a good laugh, lovers of language (and you are all bookish people, so I assume this applies to all of you), and to those people that love knowing all the weird and strange tidbits of information.
January 20, 2020
I really enjoyed this one - a fun and fascinating reading. Entirely delightful.
August 30, 2017
This was amazing.
Granted, I'm a word nerd, but this was really paced and organized in the most charming way, while still teaching me so much about common phrases and sayings. Forsyth is really clever and witty, and erudite on top of it all.
It's a rare book that will make me chuckle and also teach me valuable and new words! Such a fan of this one.
Granted, I'm a word nerd, but this was really paced and organized in the most charming way, while still teaching me so much about common phrases and sayings. Forsyth is really clever and witty, and erudite on top of it all.
It's a rare book that will make me chuckle and also teach me valuable and new words! Such a fan of this one.
December 29, 2022
I had a hard time finding what genre to stick this under and just settled on "science". Etymology is the study of words. Specifically, it looks at the origin of words and how they have changed through history. Thus "science" shall suffice.
Mark Forsyth takes you through an entertaining, amusing, and absolutely enlightening romp through the etymology of words. Hard to explain but better told :
The French word for chicken is poule, which also happens to be the name of a game played by the French during Medieval times. The winner of the pot was called the jeu de poule. This got transferred to other games where the pot of money at the table was called the poule. In the 17th Century, English gamblers brought back the term and changed the spelling-hence pool. But it was still a POOL of money at the center of the table. Also when billiards became popular, people began to bet on it and it became name as pool.
This is an excellent example of the delightful knowledge in this book. If you appreciate learning about words and where they come from then you will deeply appreciate this very entertaining and humrous book.
Mark Forsyth takes you through an entertaining, amusing, and absolutely enlightening romp through the etymology of words. Hard to explain but better told :
The French word for chicken is poule, which also happens to be the name of a game played by the French during Medieval times. The winner of the pot was called the jeu de poule. This got transferred to other games where the pot of money at the table was called the poule. In the 17th Century, English gamblers brought back the term and changed the spelling-hence pool. But it was still a POOL of money at the center of the table. Also when billiards became popular, people began to bet on it and it became name as pool.
This is an excellent example of the delightful knowledge in this book. If you appreciate learning about words and where they come from then you will deeply appreciate this very entertaining and humrous book.
August 30, 2017
Excellent book, great fun and very informative, witty and interesting - recommended to anyone who likes words and knowing weird, random facts about them. Additional point for being the best toilet book I´ve had in ages.
September 3, 2013
This book is a giant adventure playground for language. Sometimes I felt a tad dizzy and needed to sit quietly for a bit.
March 29, 2018
Love words? Read this.
September 13, 2020
This was a great way to exemplify what learning while having fun would signify.
I have to confess that more often than not I caught myself reading the title as A Circular Scroll instead of A Circular Stroll. However, I had a good excuse and that was that this book was mainly about words and how they traveled from a far away past all the way to our present.
You would have fun reading this book. Really. If it helps, the book was composed by more posts made by the author on his blog. That will entail that they are from the beginning build as to attract attention and to amuze the reader. Not to say that the non-fiction books are purposefully build to bore one to sleep. I am just saying that they are not really a read to be taken to the beach (not that there are many occasions left to go to the beach, now with the dear old pandemy).
Whatever, I was talking about the book. Yes, the book, great one. Great little-big- book that you should try. Look:
“Pocahontas was a princess of the Powhatan tribe, which lived in Virginia. Of course, the Powhatan tribe didn’t know they lived in Virginia. They thought they lived in Tenakomakah, and so the English thoughtfully came with guns to explain their mistake.”
See? Isn`t this fun? Isn`t this sparking some flickers of interest?
“In nineteenth-century America, the belief that sausages were usually made out of dog meat was so widespread that they started to be called hotdogs, a word that survives to this day.”
Lovely info to know. Great material to sprout out on a first date.
\\Instagram\\my Blog\\
I have to confess that more often than not I caught myself reading the title as A Circular Scroll instead of A Circular Stroll. However, I had a good excuse and that was that this book was mainly about words and how they traveled from a far away past all the way to our present.
You would have fun reading this book. Really. If it helps, the book was composed by more posts made by the author on his blog. That will entail that they are from the beginning build as to attract attention and to amuze the reader. Not to say that the non-fiction books are purposefully build to bore one to sleep. I am just saying that they are not really a read to be taken to the beach (not that there are many occasions left to go to the beach, now with the dear old pandemy).
Whatever, I was talking about the book. Yes, the book, great one. Great little-big- book that you should try. Look:
“Pocahontas was a princess of the Powhatan tribe, which lived in Virginia. Of course, the Powhatan tribe didn’t know they lived in Virginia. They thought they lived in Tenakomakah, and so the English thoughtfully came with guns to explain their mistake.”
See? Isn`t this fun? Isn`t this sparking some flickers of interest?
“In nineteenth-century America, the belief that sausages were usually made out of dog meat was so widespread that they started to be called hotdogs, a word that survives to this day.”
Lovely info to know. Great material to sprout out on a first date.
\\Instagram\\my Blog\\
July 22, 2020
British verbal savant Mark Forsyth came up with a powerful trilogy of books: THE ELEMENTS OF ELOQUENCE, THE HOROLOGICON (reviewed separately), and this one, THE ETYMOLOGICON. As you might expect, this last book concerns word origins, word meanings, and how one word leads to another. Thus Ecuador, which sits right on the Equator, is on a par with it, the same as the name for a tie score in golf (as in, "par for the course") -- which then shows up as part of parity, peer group, and peer of the realm. The golfing term eventually alied itself with "bogey," which proceeded from the likes of bedbug, bugaboo, and bugbear (pp. 86-90). And so on and so on.
Sometimes connections between dissimilar words will be irresistible -- downright ineluctable. For example, a lively torpedo and somnolent torpor suggest actually have common origins (p. 102). A very early wireless connection was going to be named "Pan" but that term was already taken (not surprisingly), so the designer copped the name of a very early king instead, "Bluetooth (p. 140)." Sometimes Forsyth's humor gets the better of him: "Women can't be virtuous," he avers (p, 219), punning on virtuous from vir, Latin for "man." But enough of the amorous life -- let's buy a house! Usually that requires a mortgage, a type of long-term loan which must be paid off or "made dead" ("mort") unless the debtor dies first (p. 224). Or unless the bank, named for a Renaissance-era bench ("banca"), goes broke, in which case it is broken or bankrupt ("banca-rotta," p. 227).
On the whole this is an entertaining and informative read, not too long but good fun.
Sometimes connections between dissimilar words will be irresistible -- downright ineluctable. For example, a lively torpedo and somnolent torpor suggest actually have common origins (p. 102). A very early wireless connection was going to be named "Pan" but that term was already taken (not surprisingly), so the designer copped the name of a very early king instead, "Bluetooth (p. 140)." Sometimes Forsyth's humor gets the better of him: "Women can't be virtuous," he avers (p, 219), punning on virtuous from vir, Latin for "man." But enough of the amorous life -- let's buy a house! Usually that requires a mortgage, a type of long-term loan which must be paid off or "made dead" ("mort") unless the debtor dies first (p. 224). Or unless the bank, named for a Renaissance-era bench ("banca"), goes broke, in which case it is broken or bankrupt ("banca-rotta," p. 227).
On the whole this is an entertaining and informative read, not too long but good fun.
June 6, 2012
I fear my burgeoning interest in etymology has turned me into a crashing bore. I can’t get through a conversation these days without a digression into the history of a particular word. My mum was showing me her lovely in-bloom garden the other day and all I was able to contribute was, ‘You know, foxgloves were originally called Folks’ gloves, because Folks were what people called fairies…’ (Cue polite ‘oh, really?’)
Apart from the health warning that this book will inhibit your ability to have normal conversations, The Etymologicon is quite a delightful read. So many authors try to make a serious academic subject funny, but few succeed as admirably as Mark Forsyth. This book is a lovely, meandering journey through the history of the English language and I recommend it to any word nerd.
Apart from the health warning that this book will inhibit your ability to have normal conversations, The Etymologicon is quite a delightful read. So many authors try to make a serious academic subject funny, but few succeed as admirably as Mark Forsyth. This book is a lovely, meandering journey through the history of the English language and I recommend it to any word nerd.
January 31, 2012
This book has a number of really interesting etymological anecdotes. However, it has no bibliography, so I take them with a grain of salt despite the author's protestations that they're all sourced and true. I would give this book a higher rating, but where the author clearly thought he was being cute and light by skipping from story to story with a kind of "before and after" narrative skein, it ended up being more exhausting than amusing. It sort of felt like talking to an autistic person who never shuts up after a while. If you want a Rain Man version of pop etymology for a number of common phrases and words, this is the book for you.
July 3, 2015
Is it too geeky to have wanted more detail? Just a little too much repetition at times while a little light on some of the explainations. Still an enjoyable little read.
March 20, 2025
I feel like a teenager again. I remember being able to become infatuated with certain artists, where it felt like no matter how many times I listened to their songs, they reliably would give me solace and delight. I haven’t been able to forge such relationships with music, or with art in general these days. Forsyth’s Etymologicon was the first, in a long time, that has provoked infatuation in this way. This book is the gift that keeps on giving.
The entries are magnificent. Forsyth’s humorous style of presenting any material invariably raises one’s spirits and gets laughter going. Moreover, his choice of words of study is deep-cutting and significant; they are suggestive of history and the human condition all alike. Reading this book is as pleasurable as an addictive TV series, but also as fulfilling as a thought-provoking work of philosophy.
Before now, I’ve always belittled the hobby of doing trivia. It has seemed to me that this hobby is wasteful and even perverted: There is a meaningful human experience of learning something new or discovering something, and playing trivia evokes a similitude of this; it has the capacity to make us feel like we’re learning something new, but in fact whatever it is we’re so-called learning is decontextualized and empty. It doesn’t give us anything aside from an artificial feeling of pride in the moment.
Boy, I was wrong. Forsyth at least has given me hundreds of “trivia” facts, which are meaningful, in at least two senses. First, individual facts often serve as windows into some bit of history, psychology, or the society around us. Second, this practice as a whole of peering into the etymology of a word has given me a newfound relationship to language. I can feel the weight of generations of people before me responsible for the words I’m now using and wonder at their ways of seeing the world that are now foreign to me but have been essential for contemporary practice. I can also know that usually, a word I use has siblings, or is one among various which are equally derived from certain other words or roots of them; and I can marvel at beauty or strangeness upon their juxtaposition.
It’s also a delight experience to see the entries move according to a dream-like logic. This is no resource book, in which words can be looked up. One word moves to the next on the basis of that some phenomenon which shaped the history of the former word is of a topic which brings up the relevance of the next word, or which is related to other phenomena which shape the next words. It is playful and uncontrived.
In general, it is inspiring to see a mind at work like Forsyth’s which is so obsessed with something which is usually invisible and assumed to be inconsequential. While etymology remains inconsequential for practical purposes, Forsyth reveals how very consequential it is for our senses of awe and wonder, and our desires for intelligibility and beauty.
Here are some of my favorite entires (and as one can see, my claims above are not hyperbolic):
“Soon was the Anglo-Saxon word for now. It’s just that after a thousand years of people saying ‘I’ll do that soon’, soon has ended up meaning what it does today.”
“There was an old Germanic word for burnt, which was black… old Germanics couldn’t decide between black and white as to which color burning was. Some old Germans said that when things were burning they were bright and shiny, and others said that when things were burnt they turned black. The result was a hopeless monochrome confusion, until everybody got bored and rode off to sack Rome. The English were left holding black, which could mean either pale or dark”
“Another common form of folk etymology happens when people alter the spelling of strange or unfamiliar words so that they appear to make more sense. For example, there’s a drowsy little rodent that the French therefore used to call a dormeuse, which meant she who sleeps. In English we call the same creature a dormouse.”
“A Welsh carpet was a pattern painted, or satined, onto a brick floor; a Welsh diamond is a rock crystal; and a Welsh comb is your fingers. When they had finished abusing the Welsh, the English phrase-makers… believed the French to be dishonest lechers, which is why a French letter is a condom and a French leave is truancy, although here the French have got their own back by calling the same thing filer à l'anglaise”
“This system [a variety of serfdom], abolished by Emperor Josef II in 1848, was called robot… Karel’s [a Czech play writer in 1920] brother… suggested calling them [futuristic servants produced in a factory from biological matter, as the main characters in the play] robots”
“From there [the history of use of bogey-bears to refer to scary things, and eventually burglar alarms bugs] it was one small step for the word bug before it was applied to tiny listening devices... and that’s why James Bond checks his room for bugs, and that’s also why there could actually be an etymological bogeyman hidden beneath your bed… the fifth verse of the 91st Psalm [in a 1535 translation, was rendered] thus: ‘Thou shalt not need to be afraid of any buggers by nights’… then, in the mid-seventeenth century, bug mysteriously started to mean insect…”
“Window, which originally a wind-eye, because, though you can look out through it like an eye, in the days before glass the wind could get in… early anatomists thought that the centre of the eye was a solid that appeared to be shaped like an apple, hence the apple of your eye. These days it has an even stranger name. It’s called a pupil… in Latin a little boy was called a pupus and a little girl was called a pupa… when they went to school they became pupils. Now gaze deeply into somebody’s eyes… What do you see? You ought to see a tiny reflection of yourself gazing back. This little version of you seems like a child, and that’s why it’s a pupil.”
“Tattooed javelin-thrower = Britney Spears… Britney was a surname meaning British. Britain comes from prittanoi, which means the tattooed people. Spears is a shortening of spearman.”
The entries are magnificent. Forsyth’s humorous style of presenting any material invariably raises one’s spirits and gets laughter going. Moreover, his choice of words of study is deep-cutting and significant; they are suggestive of history and the human condition all alike. Reading this book is as pleasurable as an addictive TV series, but also as fulfilling as a thought-provoking work of philosophy.
Before now, I’ve always belittled the hobby of doing trivia. It has seemed to me that this hobby is wasteful and even perverted: There is a meaningful human experience of learning something new or discovering something, and playing trivia evokes a similitude of this; it has the capacity to make us feel like we’re learning something new, but in fact whatever it is we’re so-called learning is decontextualized and empty. It doesn’t give us anything aside from an artificial feeling of pride in the moment.
Boy, I was wrong. Forsyth at least has given me hundreds of “trivia” facts, which are meaningful, in at least two senses. First, individual facts often serve as windows into some bit of history, psychology, or the society around us. Second, this practice as a whole of peering into the etymology of a word has given me a newfound relationship to language. I can feel the weight of generations of people before me responsible for the words I’m now using and wonder at their ways of seeing the world that are now foreign to me but have been essential for contemporary practice. I can also know that usually, a word I use has siblings, or is one among various which are equally derived from certain other words or roots of them; and I can marvel at beauty or strangeness upon their juxtaposition.
It’s also a delight experience to see the entries move according to a dream-like logic. This is no resource book, in which words can be looked up. One word moves to the next on the basis of that some phenomenon which shaped the history of the former word is of a topic which brings up the relevance of the next word, or which is related to other phenomena which shape the next words. It is playful and uncontrived.
In general, it is inspiring to see a mind at work like Forsyth’s which is so obsessed with something which is usually invisible and assumed to be inconsequential. While etymology remains inconsequential for practical purposes, Forsyth reveals how very consequential it is for our senses of awe and wonder, and our desires for intelligibility and beauty.
Here are some of my favorite entires (and as one can see, my claims above are not hyperbolic):
“Soon was the Anglo-Saxon word for now. It’s just that after a thousand years of people saying ‘I’ll do that soon’, soon has ended up meaning what it does today.”
“There was an old Germanic word for burnt, which was black… old Germanics couldn’t decide between black and white as to which color burning was. Some old Germans said that when things were burning they were bright and shiny, and others said that when things were burnt they turned black. The result was a hopeless monochrome confusion, until everybody got bored and rode off to sack Rome. The English were left holding black, which could mean either pale or dark”
“Another common form of folk etymology happens when people alter the spelling of strange or unfamiliar words so that they appear to make more sense. For example, there’s a drowsy little rodent that the French therefore used to call a dormeuse, which meant she who sleeps. In English we call the same creature a dormouse.”
“A Welsh carpet was a pattern painted, or satined, onto a brick floor; a Welsh diamond is a rock crystal; and a Welsh comb is your fingers. When they had finished abusing the Welsh, the English phrase-makers… believed the French to be dishonest lechers, which is why a French letter is a condom and a French leave is truancy, although here the French have got their own back by calling the same thing filer à l'anglaise”
“This system [a variety of serfdom], abolished by Emperor Josef II in 1848, was called robot… Karel’s [a Czech play writer in 1920] brother… suggested calling them [futuristic servants produced in a factory from biological matter, as the main characters in the play] robots”
“From there [the history of use of bogey-bears to refer to scary things, and eventually burglar alarms bugs] it was one small step for the word bug before it was applied to tiny listening devices... and that’s why James Bond checks his room for bugs, and that’s also why there could actually be an etymological bogeyman hidden beneath your bed… the fifth verse of the 91st Psalm [in a 1535 translation, was rendered] thus: ‘Thou shalt not need to be afraid of any buggers by nights’… then, in the mid-seventeenth century, bug mysteriously started to mean insect…”
“Window, which originally a wind-eye, because, though you can look out through it like an eye, in the days before glass the wind could get in… early anatomists thought that the centre of the eye was a solid that appeared to be shaped like an apple, hence the apple of your eye. These days it has an even stranger name. It’s called a pupil… in Latin a little boy was called a pupus and a little girl was called a pupa… when they went to school they became pupils. Now gaze deeply into somebody’s eyes… What do you see? You ought to see a tiny reflection of yourself gazing back. This little version of you seems like a child, and that’s why it’s a pupil.”
“Tattooed javelin-thrower = Britney Spears… Britney was a surname meaning British. Britain comes from prittanoi, which means the tattooed people. Spears is a shortening of spearman.”
November 16, 2011
I sometimes get sent to read a book that doesn't fit with www.popularscience.co.uk but that I want to tell the world about. Such a book is The Etymologicon.
I ought to get a disclaimer out of the way - this title is published by Icon, the same people who publish my Inflight Science, but don't worry, I've slagged off their books in the past.
As the name sort of suggests, this is a book about where words come from, which as a writer I'm a sucker for - but anyone should find it fun. It's light, entertaining and fascinating. Did you know for instance that 'pool' as in pooling resources and playing pool has nothing to do with water and everything to do with chickens (poulets en France).This is really one of those books where you have to fight hard to resist telling anyone in earshot little snippets every five minutes.
Any moans? Just occasionally I lost interest a tad, but it quickly picked up again and the flowing structure of little chapters meant that it's easy to just read one more. And one more. And another. Someone I spoke to who had already read it made a big thing of the way the end of each mini-chapter leads into the next one (ending up pointing back to the first chapter, hence the 'circular stroll' in the subtitle). I actually found this the least endearing part of the book - I found these links forced and unnecessary. But it just shows, you can't please all the people all the time.
In its rather handsome small hardback form (no dustcover, though) it's clearly intended as a gift book - and is going to make a great one - but this is also a book I would consider unashamedly buying for yourself. If you like words, it's for you.
Originally published on http://brianclegg.blogspot.com and reproduced with permission.
I ought to get a disclaimer out of the way - this title is published by Icon, the same people who publish my Inflight Science, but don't worry, I've slagged off their books in the past.
As the name sort of suggests, this is a book about where words come from, which as a writer I'm a sucker for - but anyone should find it fun. It's light, entertaining and fascinating. Did you know for instance that 'pool' as in pooling resources and playing pool has nothing to do with water and everything to do with chickens (poulets en France).This is really one of those books where you have to fight hard to resist telling anyone in earshot little snippets every five minutes.
Any moans? Just occasionally I lost interest a tad, but it quickly picked up again and the flowing structure of little chapters meant that it's easy to just read one more. And one more. And another. Someone I spoke to who had already read it made a big thing of the way the end of each mini-chapter leads into the next one (ending up pointing back to the first chapter, hence the 'circular stroll' in the subtitle). I actually found this the least endearing part of the book - I found these links forced and unnecessary. But it just shows, you can't please all the people all the time.
In its rather handsome small hardback form (no dustcover, though) it's clearly intended as a gift book - and is going to make a great one - but this is also a book I would consider unashamedly buying for yourself. If you like words, it's for you.
Originally published on http://brianclegg.blogspot.com and reproduced with permission.
January 14, 2012
The Etymologicon might sound dry, in theory: a book which takes you through a load of connections between words in the English language. But it's funny and the connections are well chosen to give you a moment of what-the-heck which really does make you want to read on. Some of it would be well loved by schoolboys, really, with conclusions about how we're orbiting the sun on a giant testicle. (Read it if you don't believe me.)
It was a very good read to dip in and out of while sat in A&E waiting for my housemate to get an x-ray. Also good for picking up for a moment or two of boredom. Just... don't burst out laughing in A&E.
It was a very good read to dip in and out of while sat in A&E waiting for my housemate to get an x-ray. Also good for picking up for a moment or two of boredom. Just... don't burst out laughing in A&E.
February 23, 2017
I loved this book. So often I buy or borrow a book in the hopes of understanding where words or phrases come from. Instead of reading about a fun origin story, I end up with a boring book I have to make myself pay attention to. I got this for free through hoopla and figured I would listen to at least the first chapter or two in order to see if it was for me. This is the book on the origin of words I have been looking for these many years. It was everything I wished my previous books on the topic would be. Forsyth's writing is really spectacular. He must be really fun to hang out with. Even his puns (something that often ruins a book) were great. Witty, fun, and deeply interesting, this book flew by.
May 27, 2017
I admit, I'm a bit geeky, especially when it comes to words or books - and when there's a book about words, I turn from 'a bit geeky' to 'full blown geek mode'. That's where I am now. What is The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth? It's not an academic work, that's for sure, nor a thesis, nor a highly-focused and heavily detailed linguistic magnum opus. It's also not boring, or stuffy, or in fact anything it doesn't claim to be. If I had to describe The Etymologicon in one sentence, I'd probably say it's an etymological stream of consciousness that, as promised, goes full circle and leaves you smiling from ear to ear. 'Romp' is not a word that I use often but actually, it's a word that fits this book well - it's a good humoured, rolling romp through the history and origins of a whole bunch of words that are barely yet humorously strung together by Forsyth's flitting conscious.
I've read a fair few reviews of this book, and quite a number criticise it for not being academic, for the language being too 'chummy', for it bounding along without much obvious direction, but these people have quite clearly missed the point. Given the way that Forsyth's intelligence and clear ability to research shines through his writing, I have absolutely no doubt that he could, should he choose to, write a very formal dissertation or terrifying tome of academic greatness. I also have absolutely no doubt that that is not what he was going for in this book. Instead, it's a book for everyone. It's an accessible, easy to read, and heartily enjoyable book about etymology that isn't designed to rot away in some university library. The reason it sounds like you're talking to a guy down the pub is because that's how it's intended - and having a chat about it in the pub is a great way to celebrate this book.
Forsyth's humour and his ability to play with language is quite something to behold (jokes about misplaced apostrophe's and rather poultry sums keeping my legs crossed to prevent a touch of the ol' giggle-pee escaping, for example). Mix that with a heap of intelligence and some really fascinating history that goes all the way back to before time began (or maybe not quite that far), and you've got a book that is not only entertaining but educational too - I've certainly learned some interesting titbits. And boy, have I had fun forcing those nuggets of information on other people! The following transcript of my husband and I in the supermarket this morning is the perfect example of how this book has affected my life:
Husband: Shall we get some turkey?
Me: Ooo! I know why we call it turkey! I read it in that book I told you about.
Husband: Okay. Shall we get some turkey?
Me (a little dejected): Don't you want to know why we call it turkey?
Husband (blank stare and a blink)
Me: It's reeeaaaally interesting. Don't you want to know?
Husband (with a shake of his head): No. I want to know whether we should buy some turkey.
Me (with a defiant shrug): Okay, well I'm going to tell you anyway... (if you want to know what I told him, you'll have to read the book for yourself ;) )
I enjoyed this book so much that I went out and bought another two books by this author as soon as I'd finished, and I'm kicking myself for having forgotten as many interesting titbits as I have already. It's a lighthearted frolic through the world of etymology. A word of warning though: if you're not interested in the subject, you'll probably find it boring; if you're an etymological buff with heaps of knowledge, you'll probably find it a little light on detail and explanation. But if, like me, you have a love of words, you've looked up the odd etymological treat before, and you fancy reading something light and fun that might poke a few more interesting facts into your brain, this book is definitely for you.
I've read a fair few reviews of this book, and quite a number criticise it for not being academic, for the language being too 'chummy', for it bounding along without much obvious direction, but these people have quite clearly missed the point. Given the way that Forsyth's intelligence and clear ability to research shines through his writing, I have absolutely no doubt that he could, should he choose to, write a very formal dissertation or terrifying tome of academic greatness. I also have absolutely no doubt that that is not what he was going for in this book. Instead, it's a book for everyone. It's an accessible, easy to read, and heartily enjoyable book about etymology that isn't designed to rot away in some university library. The reason it sounds like you're talking to a guy down the pub is because that's how it's intended - and having a chat about it in the pub is a great way to celebrate this book.
Forsyth's humour and his ability to play with language is quite something to behold (jokes about misplaced apostrophe's and rather poultry sums keeping my legs crossed to prevent a touch of the ol' giggle-pee escaping, for example). Mix that with a heap of intelligence and some really fascinating history that goes all the way back to before time began (or maybe not quite that far), and you've got a book that is not only entertaining but educational too - I've certainly learned some interesting titbits. And boy, have I had fun forcing those nuggets of information on other people! The following transcript of my husband and I in the supermarket this morning is the perfect example of how this book has affected my life:
Husband: Shall we get some turkey?
Me: Ooo! I know why we call it turkey! I read it in that book I told you about.
Husband: Okay. Shall we get some turkey?
Me (a little dejected): Don't you want to know why we call it turkey?
Husband (blank stare and a blink)
Me: It's reeeaaaally interesting. Don't you want to know?
Husband (with a shake of his head): No. I want to know whether we should buy some turkey.
Me (with a defiant shrug): Okay, well I'm going to tell you anyway... (if you want to know what I told him, you'll have to read the book for yourself ;) )
I enjoyed this book so much that I went out and bought another two books by this author as soon as I'd finished, and I'm kicking myself for having forgotten as many interesting titbits as I have already. It's a lighthearted frolic through the world of etymology. A word of warning though: if you're not interested in the subject, you'll probably find it boring; if you're an etymological buff with heaps of knowledge, you'll probably find it a little light on detail and explanation. But if, like me, you have a love of words, you've looked up the odd etymological treat before, and you fancy reading something light and fun that might poke a few more interesting facts into your brain, this book is definitely for you.
March 18, 2019
A fun look at the meanings and origins of English words
January 9, 2012
The subtitle sums it up pretty nicely: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language. Forsyth, the man behind the blog Inky Fool, is obsessed with where words come from and with wit takes you on a roundabout journey through his obsession. I started reading this fully thinking that I'd pick it up here and there when I needed a break from my current fiction in progress. But I pretty much read this book straight through and enjoyed it very much. The target audience is definitely word nerds, though. One chapter I enjoyed was titled "Concealed Farts." In a nineteenth-century dictionary, the author found this definition for fice:
A small windy escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears; frequently by old ladies charged [blamed] on their lap-dogs.
He continues:
And fice itself comes from the Old English fist, which likewise meant fart. In Elizabethan times a smelly dog was called a fisting cur, and by the eighteenth century any little dog was called a feist, and that's where we get the word feisty from. Little dogs are so prone to bark at anything that an uppity girl was called feisty, straight from the flatulent dogs of yore. This is a point well worth remembering when you're next reading a film review about a 'feisty heroine.'
You can also find some corrections at this link.
A small windy escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears; frequently by old ladies charged [blamed] on their lap-dogs.
He continues:
And fice itself comes from the Old English fist, which likewise meant fart. In Elizabethan times a smelly dog was called a fisting cur, and by the eighteenth century any little dog was called a feist, and that's where we get the word feisty from. Little dogs are so prone to bark at anything that an uppity girl was called feisty, straight from the flatulent dogs of yore. This is a point well worth remembering when you're next reading a film review about a 'feisty heroine.'
You can also find some corrections at this link.
November 15, 2016
The Etymologicon is fascinating, educational, and entertaining. It's essentially a non-stop 7-hour stream-of-consciousness flow, linking words and their histories with a wry, and sometimes downright snarky, sense of humor, demonstrating a sort of linguistic six degrees of separation. As a self-avowed word nerd, I loved it, but even I had to admit it's best taken in relatively small doses. As Forsyth himself tacitly admits in the preface, no normal person would want to listen to hours of this stuff on end. I'd say about 30 minutes at a time is the maximum recommended dosage.
As the thread goes on, it turns not just to words but also common phrases. At times it reads like a linguistic Big Secrets (anyone else remember that popular 80s tell-all?), doling out juicy tidbits like the real story on how “spam” became common vernacular for junk email, the history behind common phrases like “point blank” and “booting” a computer, the many overlooked references to things like archery and astrology throughout the English language, how John Milton and outer space are linked, how heroin got its name, how “money” and “monster” are related, and why a score of zero in tennis is called “love.”
As the thread goes on, it turns not just to words but also common phrases. At times it reads like a linguistic Big Secrets (anyone else remember that popular 80s tell-all?), doling out juicy tidbits like the real story on how “spam” became common vernacular for junk email, the history behind common phrases like “point blank” and “booting” a computer, the many overlooked references to things like archery and astrology throughout the English language, how John Milton and outer space are linked, how heroin got its name, how “money” and “monster” are related, and why a score of zero in tennis is called “love.”
November 6, 2013
A quick and riveting read. It reintroduces a subject we are all interested in to some degree.
A couple of criticisms:
1. Too short. ( this is serious, I have a few books on the subject and there are many examples where I think Forsyth could have gone even further). I finished it's large-text, wide margin format and felt a little cheated that it was so short.
2. Often leaves a story unfinished. I have seen some fair, valid criticisms from scholars saying the same thing. Mark Forsyth is not an authority on the subject in the way some others are, though he does deserve great credit for writing a book that is likely to keep people interested where many of the other books on etymology that you are likely to take as a first dip into the area, are far too scholarly and intellectual to enjoy on the tube, or in a park.
A couple of criticisms:
1. Too short. ( this is serious, I have a few books on the subject and there are many examples where I think Forsyth could have gone even further). I finished it's large-text, wide margin format and felt a little cheated that it was so short.
2. Often leaves a story unfinished. I have seen some fair, valid criticisms from scholars saying the same thing. Mark Forsyth is not an authority on the subject in the way some others are, though he does deserve great credit for writing a book that is likely to keep people interested where many of the other books on etymology that you are likely to take as a first dip into the area, are far too scholarly and intellectual to enjoy on the tube, or in a park.
October 25, 2014
This is a fantastic read and probably the most interesting book I have read so far this year. I love words and their hidden meanings so this book was a great find. I enjoyed Mark Forsyth’s writing a lot. At first it all seems a bit chaotic (with the origin of one word kind of slipping to the next) but I got used to it and ended up liking it a lot. Forsyth is an amusing writer and doesn’t take himself seriously, which is refreshing for this kind of book. It is entertaining, funny and educational and the type of book you can’t help reading excerpts from to anyone within earshot. I would love to quote snippets from The Etymologicon right here but I’m afraid Goodreads doesn’t allow that many characters in a review.
A must-read for anyone who loves words.
A must-read for anyone who loves words.
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