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Names: and Their Meaning; A Book for the Curious
The book " and Their Meaning; A Book for the Curious", has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.
156 pages, Paperback
First published April 14, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 14, 2025
Great book to fall asleep to. Project Gutenberg has a free copy with great kindle formatting.
It was interesting learning origins of many words. Large London focus though and despite being mostly a dry encyclopaedic dictionary of etymology, the author still manages to throw in his biases which I found hilarious. It’s as if the Oxford dictionary defined every colour dryly and then a particular colour as “A boring colour that nobody really likes”.
Note that the author doesn’t provide sources, so I wouldn’t call this an authoritative work of fact. But it could be true!
Here are my favourite facts:
- Pennies originally were deeply indented with a cross, such that if you needed a half penny or farthing (quarter penny) you could just snap your penny into pieces.
- Teetotaler comes from a stutterer who addressed a meeting of alcohol abstainers, saying “Nothing but t-t-t-total abstinence will do!”
- Wife derives from the Saxon wif, from the verb wyfan, to weave, as a woman was only considered “ready for marriage” once she had made for herself a set of body, bed, and table linens.
- Yankee originated from native Americans pronunciation of “English” which sounded phonetically like “Yengees” due to the unfamiliar sounds
- Patagonia was named by Magellan from the Spanish “Patagon” meaning large clumsy foot, because they saw huge footprints and concluded that the land was inhabited by giants. (The truth was that the natives wore large shoes!)
It was interesting learning origins of many words. Large London focus though and despite being mostly a dry encyclopaedic dictionary of etymology, the author still manages to throw in his biases which I found hilarious. It’s as if the Oxford dictionary defined every colour dryly and then a particular colour as “A boring colour that nobody really likes”.
Note that the author doesn’t provide sources, so I wouldn’t call this an authoritative work of fact. But it could be true!
Here are my favourite facts:
- Pennies originally were deeply indented with a cross, such that if you needed a half penny or farthing (quarter penny) you could just snap your penny into pieces.
- Teetotaler comes from a stutterer who addressed a meeting of alcohol abstainers, saying “Nothing but t-t-t-total abstinence will do!”
- Wife derives from the Saxon wif, from the verb wyfan, to weave, as a woman was only considered “ready for marriage” once she had made for herself a set of body, bed, and table linens.
- Yankee originated from native Americans pronunciation of “English” which sounded phonetically like “Yengees” due to the unfamiliar sounds
- Patagonia was named by Magellan from the Spanish “Patagon” meaning large clumsy foot, because they saw huge footprints and concluded that the land was inhabited by giants. (The truth was that the natives wore large shoes!)
August 15, 2018
Interesting if you like old, archaic names or terms and are interested in their etymology. I'm not sure of the veracity of these etymologies but at the very least, it's an amusing glimpse into the past. If you get the Kindle version, it's riddled with formatting errors.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews