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May We Borrow Your Language?: How English Steals Words From All Over the World
The English language that is spoken by one billion people around the world is a linguistic mongrel, its vocabulary a diverse mix resulting from centuries of borrowing from other tongues. From the Celtic languages of pre-Roman Britain to Norman French; from the Vikings' Old Scandinavian to Persian, Sanskrit, Algonquian, Cantonese and Hawaiian – amongst a host of others – we have enriched our modern language with such words as tulip, slogan, doolally, avocado, moccasin, ketchup and ukulele.
May We Borrow Your Language? explores the intriguing and unfamiliar stories behind scores of familiar words that the English language has filched from abroad; in so doing, it also sheds fascinating light on the wider history of the development of the English we speak today.
Full of etymological nuggets to intrigue and delight the reader, this is a gift book for word buffs to cherish – as cerebrally stimulating as it is more-ishly entertaining.
286 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 3, 2016
15 people are currently reading
498 people want to read
About the author
Philip Gooden
84 books33 followersPhilip Gooden lives in Bath. In addition to his Nick Revill series, Sleep of Death, he is the author of The Guinness Guide to Better English and the editor of The Mammoth Book of Literary Anecdotes. Each of his Nick Revill mysteries revolves around a Shakespearean play mirroring life - in Sleep of Death the play was Hamlet, in this offering it is Troilus and Cressida.
AKA Philippa Morgan.
Series:
* Shakespearean Murder
* Tom Ansell
AKA Philippa Morgan.
Series:
* Shakespearean Murder
* Tom Ansell
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
February 10, 2023
Anyone who watches my Booktube channel will know that I spend a fair amount of time ripping apart publishers' synopses of books because they're often inaccurate. It seems the goal in writing a summary is to make a book sound sexier than it actually is to get it to sell, but publishers mischaracterize the book in the process, leading the reader to go into it with a skewed notion of what to expect. This often primes the reader to dislike the book. But credit where credit's due: the publisher describes this book as a collection of "etymological nuggets," and I couldn't have put it better myself.
In this book, the author gives histories of a great many words in the English language and shows where precisely those words came from, or where we think they came from if the origin is disputed. I could go on a different rant here about misleading book titles/subtitles, because English is not stealing from other languages more so than any other language on Earth has. Languages grow, evolve, lend aspects to other languages, and take in equal measure. But by looking at what has influenced the English language over the centuries does give us a clear picture of what other cultures found themselves in proximity to English speakers.
The author moves chronologically, starting with words you may have encountered in classic literature, progressing all the way up to the modern day when language is changing faster than ever due to the influence of the internet. It's a fascinating book and a lot of fun to read, given the author's playful nature. But it's choppy. The chapters are very short and all the information is so rapid fire that it feels like you're at a disadvantage if you try to read it straight through as you would a normal book.
If you're a word nerd and knowing where certain words come from gets you excited in that distinctly nerdy way, absolutely give this one a try. But consider reading it slowly, perhaps as something you keep on your nightstand to read a few chapters before bedtime, to get the most out of it.
Click here to hear more of my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
In this book, the author gives histories of a great many words in the English language and shows where precisely those words came from, or where we think they came from if the origin is disputed. I could go on a different rant here about misleading book titles/subtitles, because English is not stealing from other languages more so than any other language on Earth has. Languages grow, evolve, lend aspects to other languages, and take in equal measure. But by looking at what has influenced the English language over the centuries does give us a clear picture of what other cultures found themselves in proximity to English speakers.
The author moves chronologically, starting with words you may have encountered in classic literature, progressing all the way up to the modern day when language is changing faster than ever due to the influence of the internet. It's a fascinating book and a lot of fun to read, given the author's playful nature. But it's choppy. The chapters are very short and all the information is so rapid fire that it feels like you're at a disadvantage if you try to read it straight through as you would a normal book.
If you're a word nerd and knowing where certain words come from gets you excited in that distinctly nerdy way, absolutely give this one a try. But consider reading it slowly, perhaps as something you keep on your nightstand to read a few chapters before bedtime, to get the most out of it.
Click here to hear more of my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
August 12, 2019
May We Borrow Your Language? was a frustrating read. I'm a big fan of etymology and so picked up this book expecting a fun collection of word origins, hopefully linking in to broader concepts in linguistics. While the book technically is that, I had two major problems with it. Firstly, the structure is in small, bite-size chapters not dissimilar to Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees. Much as I found with that book, this structure was intensely annoying with chapters stopping just as they get started. I almost abandoned the book mid-way through as I found it intensely frustrating to shift gears every three pages. Secondly, while I'm sure that Gooden knows his stuff (in fact, the book is crammed with asides and nuggets of information) I found his personal writing style insufferably casual and showy: it was as if he was desperate to prove linguistic superiority over his readers. Balancing the dispensation of facts with likeability is a tough tightrope to walk - someone like Stephen Fry manages it very well (though not so much in prose), while someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson very much falls to one side. Gooden does the same, and it certainly didn't endear him to me.
November 23, 2016
One billion other people around the world speak my language; except it isn’t really my language as English is famous for purloining and absorbing other peoples words and making them its own. This melding of languages has been happening for thousands of years. People have arrived in our island, stayed for a while, and left only smudges in the soil and a handful of words in the vocabulary. Careful searching in our language can uncover Celtic and Roman and Saxon words deep in our language. More than that, we have shamelessly stolen words and phrases as we have travelled the seas and oceans for places as far away as Hawaii and Australia, and claimed them as our own.
In this lovely book Gooden brings us a mere dusting of some of those words that are familiar and unusual, ancient and strange, but all looted from other languages. Each carefully selected word has details on its origin as well as a date when we misappropriated it into English, along with anecdotes and the story behind the word. There are nuggets of information in here on all his chosen words and each is written with wit and aplomb as he reveals the history and details on words as diverse as cwen, lust, delphinan and bathos. It is more than that though as these words mark the expansion of our language as we absorbed words into it, sometime taking the meanings, sometimes not. The ages of some of the words is fascinating too, I would have put juggernaut as a modern word; turns out it isn’t. It is a worthy addition for anyone with an etymological collection of books, and if you like Mark Forsyth this is right up your street.
In this lovely book Gooden brings us a mere dusting of some of those words that are familiar and unusual, ancient and strange, but all looted from other languages. Each carefully selected word has details on its origin as well as a date when we misappropriated it into English, along with anecdotes and the story behind the word. There are nuggets of information in here on all his chosen words and each is written with wit and aplomb as he reveals the history and details on words as diverse as cwen, lust, delphinan and bathos. It is more than that though as these words mark the expansion of our language as we absorbed words into it, sometime taking the meanings, sometimes not. The ages of some of the words is fascinating too, I would have put juggernaut as a modern word; turns out it isn’t. It is a worthy addition for anyone with an etymological collection of books, and if you like Mark Forsyth this is right up your street.
April 10, 2018
This is a fun book if you are interested in language. But...
It's annoying when you are reading a non-fiction book and you come across a subject you actually know something about and you spot an error. What else might be wrong in the book?
In this case, it was the chapter on "quark". I have a degree in physics, I am a fan of James Joyce, and I like words. I know something about this.
Gooden's chapter is more or less correct in that the name for the sub-atomic particle was taken from a line in Joyce's Finnegans Wake. But he's wrong that its first appearance in print was in 1939 and that Joyce made it up.
Firstly, the word does appear in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, with a citation dating back to 1860. It means to imitate a croaking sound, and Joyce used it to mean the sound of a gull. Whether he knew the older word, I don't know.
Gooden suggests he got the word from the older "quawk", but there's more likely origin. In the German speaking world, quark is a type of cottage cheese. Joyce lived in Switzerland and almost certainly knew this. It's also colloquially used to mean nonsense.
And just last year, a German friend told me another connection. The line in Finnegans Wake that introduces the word is "Three quarks for Muster Mark." There is, I'm told an old advertising slogan, "Drei Mark für Musterquark" - three marks for exemplary quark - which must be where Joyce got his line from.
It's annoying when you are reading a non-fiction book and you come across a subject you actually know something about and you spot an error. What else might be wrong in the book?
In this case, it was the chapter on "quark". I have a degree in physics, I am a fan of James Joyce, and I like words. I know something about this.
Gooden's chapter is more or less correct in that the name for the sub-atomic particle was taken from a line in Joyce's Finnegans Wake. But he's wrong that its first appearance in print was in 1939 and that Joyce made it up.
Firstly, the word does appear in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, with a citation dating back to 1860. It means to imitate a croaking sound, and Joyce used it to mean the sound of a gull. Whether he knew the older word, I don't know.
Gooden suggests he got the word from the older "quawk", but there's more likely origin. In the German speaking world, quark is a type of cottage cheese. Joyce lived in Switzerland and almost certainly knew this. It's also colloquially used to mean nonsense.
And just last year, a German friend told me another connection. The line in Finnegans Wake that introduces the word is "Three quarks for Muster Mark." There is, I'm told an old advertising slogan, "Drei Mark für Musterquark" - three marks for exemplary quark - which must be where Joyce got his line from.
August 16, 2021
Opinions seem divided about this book. Some people find it offers too little information, others enthuse over what they have learned. It puts me in mind of that well-known joke about a tourist in Ireland who asks one of the locals for directions to Dublin. The Irishman replies: ‘Well sir, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here.’
How you react to it depends on your previous level of knowledge about the English words in question. It's difficult to get the balance right between pitching it to someone who knows nothing about any of the words and someone who knows all about them. As I would tend towards the second category, I nevertheless found it an enjoyable, quick, easy read.
Someone complained that it was like blog posts. In my view, that's in its favour: snippets that don't take up too much time and are agreeable to read. It's written in a conversational not an academic style - and all the better for that. And I confess to a personal interest; I had thought of writing a book on the same subject and had done some preliminary work on it. I struggled with how to present the material: by language? by theme? by century? and so forth. The idea of just doing it one word at a time chronologically works well and is tried and tested - cf. David Crystal's The Story of English in 100 Words. This is not deep etymology but rather light reading for the linguistically curious and none the worse for being so.
How you react to it depends on your previous level of knowledge about the English words in question. It's difficult to get the balance right between pitching it to someone who knows nothing about any of the words and someone who knows all about them. As I would tend towards the second category, I nevertheless found it an enjoyable, quick, easy read.
Someone complained that it was like blog posts. In my view, that's in its favour: snippets that don't take up too much time and are agreeable to read. It's written in a conversational not an academic style - and all the better for that. And I confess to a personal interest; I had thought of writing a book on the same subject and had done some preliminary work on it. I struggled with how to present the material: by language? by theme? by century? and so forth. The idea of just doing it one word at a time chronologically works well and is tried and tested - cf. David Crystal's The Story of English in 100 Words. This is not deep etymology but rather light reading for the linguistically curious and none the worse for being so.
March 5, 2022
May we Borrow your Language is full of interesting facts and short stories about how and why certain words entered use in modern day English. I’ve enjoyed reading it, especially as a linguist myself, but the stop-start narrative leaves it a difficult book to read cover to cover. I think it would be much better enjoyed as a book that you can dip in and out of over a long period of time.
August 22, 2018
There is little depth to this book. The chapters are all titled by words that are supposedly the focus of the section. Besides comparing the original definition and its origin with the current definition and an occasional anecdote about a past use, there is little information about the words he focuses on. Instead, the remaining part of the chapter is filled with basically a list of similar words usually in origin or meaning and sometimes an anecdote or two about these words. Honestly, he could pick any word he lists in the chapter as the title because there is so little insight to what he writes.
He also references The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and The Canterbury Tales a startling amount. I think 95% of his inspiration came from skimming headlines and those stories.
He also references The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and The Canterbury Tales a startling amount. I think 95% of his inspiration came from skimming headlines and those stories.
December 27, 2018
Ultimately, I value my time more than the sense of completion of would get from dumping another hour and a half into finishing this list of blog ideas in book format.
Each 'chapter' runs the gamut from a scant page with a hilariously oversized heading or several pages of long meandering personal story with little to no application to the word being discussed. Speaking of which, the stars of the book, the words being dissected are barely remarked upon in shallow, hypothetical terms and then followed by a list of compound words and online headlines, to prove that the word is used, I suppose. Despite the unsatisfying brevity of the entries, the author has time and space to jam in a shocking variety of rants, ranging from such unrelated topics as the pretension of coffee shops to the real estate market. The self-indulgence is less endearing than the author seems to think, as these rants are often far more fleshed out than the purported content of the book. The only passage with sufficient detailing is the author's recollection of the word 'fuck' being spoken on tv and confusingly, the majority of the detail is to describe a high school teacher. I would have enjoyed the book much more if it had been detailed and arranged more pleasingly. As the author reserves from one to four pages per word, I would expect the sole content of those po ages to be related to the words. Rather, the author dispatches the word as quickly as he is able, to the either list similar words - for example, in the section on tragedy, the bulk of it is merely a list of other terms derived from Greek drama. However, had there been a section on words derived from Greek art or society, I would have found it more toothsome. As it was, reading this book was like repeatedly biting into word-shaped air; unsatisfying to a language fan.
My other huge issue, as stated I other reviews, in the lack of complete accuracy regarding some of the words. I know a fair amount of classical history and found those sections to be overall lacking, which made me question the veracity of the rest of the book.
It's ironic that on page 146, the author makes fun of a fourteenth century work referred to as 'Remaines' for being a poorly narrated collection of essays. Having made this point, I really wonder why he was not able to circumvent the same pitfall.
Each 'chapter' runs the gamut from a scant page with a hilariously oversized heading or several pages of long meandering personal story with little to no application to the word being discussed. Speaking of which, the stars of the book, the words being dissected are barely remarked upon in shallow, hypothetical terms and then followed by a list of compound words and online headlines, to prove that the word is used, I suppose. Despite the unsatisfying brevity of the entries, the author has time and space to jam in a shocking variety of rants, ranging from such unrelated topics as the pretension of coffee shops to the real estate market. The self-indulgence is less endearing than the author seems to think, as these rants are often far more fleshed out than the purported content of the book. The only passage with sufficient detailing is the author's recollection of the word 'fuck' being spoken on tv and confusingly, the majority of the detail is to describe a high school teacher. I would have enjoyed the book much more if it had been detailed and arranged more pleasingly. As the author reserves from one to four pages per word, I would expect the sole content of those po ages to be related to the words. Rather, the author dispatches the word as quickly as he is able, to the either list similar words - for example, in the section on tragedy, the bulk of it is merely a list of other terms derived from Greek drama. However, had there been a section on words derived from Greek art or society, I would have found it more toothsome. As it was, reading this book was like repeatedly biting into word-shaped air; unsatisfying to a language fan.
My other huge issue, as stated I other reviews, in the lack of complete accuracy regarding some of the words. I know a fair amount of classical history and found those sections to be overall lacking, which made me question the veracity of the rest of the book.
It's ironic that on page 146, the author makes fun of a fourteenth century work referred to as 'Remaines' for being a poorly narrated collection of essays. Having made this point, I really wonder why he was not able to circumvent the same pitfall.
November 22, 2023
It has some interesting info in it but it lost me by how it's structured. It would have been much more interesting if it would have been categorized by language (or theme) instead of just have a long list of words. It could have been very interesting if the book had gone into the historical context of language contacts that gave English these borrowings, but the way it is now it just reads as a fun facts list of etymology.
Also, this might be a bit nitpicky, but I don't think the words that aren't borrowings from other languages should have been included in this book. Also also (even more nitpicky), I don't really count words from other languages that describe an object or concept still very much tied to the original culture and never gained a wider / different meaning in English as borrowings. Those are just the names of things.
Also, this might be a bit nitpicky, but I don't think the words that aren't borrowings from other languages should have been included in this book. Also also (even more nitpicky), I don't really count words from other languages that describe an object or concept still very much tied to the original culture and never gained a wider / different meaning in English as borrowings. Those are just the names of things.
September 13, 2023
Fascinating. I listened to the audiobook, as I think it would be difficult to mentally pronounce all the variations of words covered in this collection of Etymology if read from the page. I have read a couple other books about the origins of words or the making of dictionaries, and I found this the most entertaining. I will only remember about 1/100th of what was covered, but it made me glad I once studied Latin and German, as both contribute much to the English language as we know it. And it is astonishing how many new words are added each year, and how many words have evolved to mean something very different than originally intended. Of course, William Shakespeare was a great contributor to examples of the use of unusual words-- both in Old English and in American English.
November 17, 2019
I started this at the start of exam period and finished it about 2 weeks after, I had hardly time to read it, mostly reading it on the train or on the bus. Some of the chapters were quite interesting and I enjoyed the way the personality of the narrator came through, while others bored me to death. For what reason? I don’t know. Towards the end this became a tiresome read and I had to drag myself to finish; finally finishing it while having to sit for 3hrs during a dye job.
All in all not the best nor worst but it felt like at times it was missing something. A good beginners introduction to etymology as said by a beginner.
A word vomit review
All in all not the best nor worst but it felt like at times it was missing something. A good beginners introduction to etymology as said by a beginner.
A word vomit review
September 30, 2024
3.5 stars. This book was an interesting peek at words from other languages that entered the English lexicon over the years. This is definitely heavily British English focused, which sometimes made for a bit of confusing descriptions of "high frequency" and "low frequency" words that are very different in usage in the US. I think it also suffered a bit from giving us descriptions of more than single words for each entry.
June 3, 2019
How does someone decide which words to include in a book like this? Reminds me a lot of the History of English in 10 Minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfKhl... but also how the Scripps Spelling Bee helps students study by breaking down the origin of words (and therefor helping with different spelling rules). Just a fun read but I wonder which words you would have included?
January 22, 2023
Very interesting, small, chapters for each word but then explains similar words, looking at languages or types of words. Although, not quite what the title of the book suggests... nevertheless, a good read.
March 11, 2019
Interesting read. Have shared several paragraphs with my husband who now wants to read the book himself!
August 2, 2019
From profane Anglo-Saxon to legislative Latin, this book covers the impact the many waves of immigration and colonialism has had on the development of the English language. An interesting and informative read from the early days of a language up to the present day.
November 16, 2019
English is a person and that person is taking without paying objects from other god-like creatures. A-mazing!
January 8, 2020
A wonderful glimpse into the origins of some words of phrases in English
April 18, 2021
Cool history of how some of the words in the English language evolved. Makes you think a bit more about why we call things what we do.
January 6, 2021
Each chapter in this one is represented by a foreign borrowed word, in mostly chronological order. Personally I find the older words more interesting, especially as some of the later chapters get sidetracked into rambling digressions. However, overall it was a fun read.
August 29, 2017
When I first got my hands on May We Borrow Your Language, I read it straight through - on occasion, declaiming passages to friends over the phone. Since then I've been dipping into it randomly. I'm never disappointed.
This is a book about English words: where they came from and when; other words they're related to; and how the meanings have changed or come full circle back to the original meaning. Sounds dull, when I put it like that, but Philip Gooden has applied a winning combination of erudition and wit to the project, and examples drawn from sources as varied as The Times, and the White House tapes.
This is a book about English words: where they came from and when; other words they're related to; and how the meanings have changed or come full circle back to the original meaning. Sounds dull, when I put it like that, but Philip Gooden has applied a winning combination of erudition and wit to the project, and examples drawn from sources as varied as The Times, and the White House tapes.
July 18, 2024
This book is perhaps best appreciated in its physical form. I enjoyed the stories and etymology surrounding the words, and the origins of some words truly surprised me! However, nothing seemed to stick in my memory. I borrowed it from the library’s audiobook selection and listened to it while driving to the ski slopes. Despite the interesting content, the format may have hindered my ability to fully absorb and retain the information. Reading it in print might provide a more engaging and memorable experience.
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January 8, 2017I loved reading this book over christmas as it gave me more facts about the origins of words!
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews