Word Histories and Mysteries: From Abracadabra to Zeus

by American Heritage

Book Overview

Did you know that cats are related etymologically to caterpillars? Or that Thomas Edison played a key role in popularizing the use of the greeting "Hello"? Or that muscles were originally mice, since a flexed biceps looks like a little rodent scurrying under the skin?

Word Histories and Mysteries provides a panoramic view of the unique richness of English, uncovering the origins of five hundred everyday words whose surprising and often amusing...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618454500
• ISBN13: 9780618454501
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 348 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

I would like to say that it's a little bit dissapointing

This paperback compendium of articles on the origins of words has been compiled by the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Among the oddities revealed by its writers are that average derives from an Old French word meaning "damage to shipping", that caprice comes by a devious route from an old Italian word for a hedgehog, that in medieval times deer was the name for any creature, that in Middle English dinner could mean breakfast, that fawn and fetus are etymologically connected, that garage is from a French word whose first sense in that language was a place where one moors one's boat, that junk originally meant old rope ... and so on. Its writers have not shied away from discussing features of some of the most common words, such as a, it and they. You will also be painlessly introduced to some of the terminology and ideas of etymology, such as back-formation (a word mistakenly formed from another by removing what looks like an ending), folk etymology (popular legends about word origins), metanalysis (a shift in the division between words, as a napron became an apron, metathesis (in which sounds are transposed inside a word, as wops turned into wasp), and melioration (in which over time a word becomes more elevated or positive in meaning). Though not all these terms are explained in the text, there is a glossary at the end of the book.

A very fine linquistic survey

How do new words enter the English language and dictionaries - and where did some older oddities come from? Plenty of 'word origin' titles are published; the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries answer numerous questions about what influences word changes and popularity, providing the stories of over 400 words from all areas of the vocabulary. Word Histories And Mysteries: From Abracadabra To Zeus is a very fine linquistic survey which is especially recommended for 'word origin' fans.