Another Word a Day: An All-New Romp Through Some of the Most Unusual and Intriguing Words in English

by Anu Garg

Book Overview

A smorgasbord of surprising, obscure, and exotic words

In this delightful encore to the national bestseller A Word A Day, Anu Garg, the founder of the wildly popular A Word A Day website (wordsmith.org), presents an all-new collection of unusual, intriguing words and real-life anecdotes that will thrill writers, scholars, and word buffs everywhere. Another Word A Day celebrates the English language in all its quirkiness, grandeur,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471718459
• ISBN13: 9780471718451
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Trade Paper Press
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating exploration

Exploring the origin and use of words is one of the most wonderful things to do. It gives depth and understanding to our use of the words today and makes you want to keep on learning.

A Word Geek's Dream!

It's hard to write recommendations/reviews of grammar books. I mean, pretty much it can be summed up with, "Are you a word geek? If you are, you'll get something out of this. If you're not, you'll be bored to sobs." But I think even people who aren't especially enthusiastic about linguistics and the like might end up enjoying this one. Like the paragraph from the back of the book says, the definitions and etymologies are concise but also very informative. Sometmes when I read books similar to this one, I start to lose patience and skim a bit, but that wasn't the case here at all. Most pages have an interesting-but-unrelated-to-anything-in- particular quote at the bottom (the first page of each chapter doesn't) and it's full of questions, comments and stories behind words that wordsmith.org readers have contributed. Seriously, at one point there's even a short Sherlock Holmes fanfic. No kidding.

Provides nutriment in spades for those interested in words

In "Another Word a Day" (is anyone else irritated that we cannot use italics for titles on reviews here?) Anu Garg devotes 52 specialized chapters to sets of five words each. He focuses on a common theme for each chapter, such as Numeric Terms, Fishy Words, or Words about Books and Writing (and having deployed the quotations for the book title, I must leave the chapter titles unadorned). I received a copy of this book back in the winter and promptly lost it when it slid behind a rather ugsome desk I was in the process of tidying. Now that I have ousted the book, I am enjoying it. More to the point, I'm learning a great deal about a diverse, interesting collection of words. Mr. Garg succeeds in large measure by making the process entertaining. I suspect that the most ardent agelast would at least chuckle to himself at some point and that even erudite readers will run across words they had either forgotten about or hitherto not encountered. Mr. Garg offers definitions parsed out by parts of speech, delves into a bit of etymology without lapsing into morbidly detailed fact-finding, and includes examples of how each word has been used in the current lexicon. He augments the text with an abundance of quotes and pithy sidebars. In short, a book that provides nutriment in spades for those folks, myself included, who are interested in words and their usage and history.

Enhancing Your Enjoyment of English

_Another Word a Day: An All-New Romp through Some of the Most Intriguing Words in English_ is a linguaphile's delight! Written by Anu Garg, author of _A Word a Day_ (the newsletter and the book), _Another Word a Day_ "celebrates the English language in all its quirkiness, grandeur, fun, and delight." Although the reader is likely to encounter some unfamiliar words in this collection (nyctalopia, dasypygal, and zugzwang, for example), all of the words are in use, and most are illustrated by examples from current sources. _Another Word a Day_ is organized into 52 chapters, each with a theme (for a few chapters the reader is invited to discover the theme). Examples of chapters are "Words Formed Erroneously," "Words about Words," and "Numeric Terms." Each chapter includes five entry words, and each entry includes pronunciation, plural (if applicable), part of speech, definition, etymology, and use in context from a published source. Nearly every chapter includes reader feedback, presumably collected from Garg's online community -- some 600,000 strong. For example, seventeen theories of the origin of the term "eighty-six" are presented, even though no one theory can be proven. Several chapters offer puzzles or quizzes (answers are provided at the end of the book), and an index of entry words is helpful. Pithy quotations appear at the bottom of most pages -- a bit of lagniappe for the reader. Sometimes a person with a fresh perspective can help us appreciate things around us that we take for granted. Such is the case with Anu Garg, who was born and raised in the state of Uttar Pradesh, in India, and did not begin to learn English until he was in the sixth grade. Garg's fascination with words and his mastery of English are apparent, however. With clarity and conciseness he leads us on mini-explorations of our language. The enthusiasm of this most worthy "tour guide" is contagious.

Hilarious!

Anu Garg, the world's favorite wordsmith, has just published his second book, called "Another Word A Day." It's the funniest book I've read this year - a laugh on every page. It includes dozens of amusing anecdotes and quips from some of the 600,000 wordlovers who receive his free newsletter A Word A Day. It would make an ideal Christmas present for readers of all ages.