The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English

By Jakob Robert Steiger

Book Overview

AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR

The Secret Life of Words is a wide-ranging account of the transplanted, stolen, bastardized words we've come to know as the English languag. It's a history of English as a whole, and of the thousands of individual words, from more than 350 foreign tongues, that trickled in gradually over hundreds of years of trade, colonization, and diplomacy. Henry Hitchings narrates the story from the Norman Conquest to the present day, chronicling the English language as a living archive of human experience.

A SAMPLE OF THE THOUSANDS OF STORIES BEHIND THE WORDS:
- Alcatraz Island was named by a Spanish explorer who arrived in 1775 to find the island covered with pelicans, or alcatraces. And "alcatraces"? The word goes back to the Arabic al-qadus, which was a bucket used in irrigation that resembled the bucket beaks of pelicans.

- What does a walnut have to do with walls? The word comes from the Old English walhnutu, meaning foreign nut. They were originally grown in Italy and imported, and the northern Europeans named them to distinguish them from the native hazelnut.

- A crayfish is not a fish. The name comes from the old French word crevice, through the Old German crebiz and the modern French ecrevisse. The "fish" part is just the result of a mishearing."

The Secret Life of Words is a wide-ranging chronicle of how words witness history, reflect social change, and remind us of our past.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312428561
• ISBN13: 9780312428563
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Picador
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

"Getting to know you. Getting to know all about you" from “The King and I.”

Getting to know you. Getting to feel free and easy. When I am with you Getting to know what to say. - The King and I - Getting to Know You Lyrics | MetroLyrics Did you ever wonder how English became English? There is a plethora of books on word origins, some amusing, and some in-depth. But no other book quite as well targets how it got from there to here as Henry Hitchings' descriptions. Occasionally he appears to be wordy, but don't let this fool you. Everything he says leads to a point. And it's the reason you're reading this book. One book cannot hold everything. However, the author makes a good stab at it here. Just going through the bibliographies and indexes will take quite some time. I've read books on euphemisms and anachronisms and found them interesting. Yet I never realized how interesting just common words could be. Knowing a little bit of their origin, I do strive to say things like children instead of kids. And always wonder what happened to “kine”. In any event, will find a lot of information packed into a small book. You will wonder how you lived so long without knowing this information. This book is a keeper for your library, and you will want to reference it periodically. The next surprise is “Divided by A Common Language: A Guide to British and American English” by Christopher E. Davies, ISBN-13:9780618002757