The Etymologicon: a Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

Description

"I'm hooked on Forsyth's book ... Crikey, but this is addictive"--Mathew Parris, The Times. Sunday Times Bestseller and Book of the Week on Radio Four. The Etymologicon springs from Mark Forsyth's Inky Fool blog on the strange connections between words. It's an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language, taking in monks and monkeys, film buffs and buffaloes, and explaining precisely what the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening.;Title page; Copyright; Contents; About the author; Dedication; Quotation; Author's note; Preface; The Etymologicon; A Turn-up for the Books; A Game of Chicken; Hydrogentlemanly; The Old and New Testicle; Parenthetical Codpieces; Suffering for my Underwear; Pans; Miltonic Meanders; Bloody Typical Semantic Shifts; The Proof of the Pudding; Sausage Poison in Your Face; Bows and Arrows and Cats; Black and White; Hat Cheque Point Charlie; Sex and Bread; Concealed Farts; Wool; Turkey; Insulting Foods; Folk Etymology; Butterflies of the World; Psychoanalysis and the Release of the Butterfly. Title page Copyright Contents About the author Dedication Quotation Author's note Preface The Etymologicon A Turn-up for the Books A Game of Chicken Hydrogentlemanly The Old and New Testicle Parenthetical Codpieces Suffering for my Underwear Pans Miltonic Meanders Bloody Typical Semantic Shifts The Proof of the Pudding Sausage Poison in Your Face Bows and Arrows and Cats Black and White Hat Cheque Point Charlie Sex and Bread Concealed Farts Wool Turkey Insulting Foods Folk Etymology Butterflies of the World Psychoanalysis and the Release of the Butterfly. The Villains of the LanguageTwo Executioners and a Doctor Thomas Crapper Mythical Acronyms John the Baptist and The Sound of Music Organic, Organised, Organs Clipping Buffalo Antanaclasis China Coincidences and Patterns Frankly, My Dear Frankfurter Beastly Foreigners Pejoratives Ciao Slave-driver Robots Terminators and Prejudice Terminators and Equators Equality in Ecuador Bogeys Bugbears and Bedbugs Von Munchausen's Computer SPAM (not spam) Heroin Morphing De Quincey and Shelley Star-Spangled Drinking Songs Torpedoes and Turtles. From Mount Vernon to Portobello Road with a HangoverA Punch of Drinks The Scampering Champion of the Champagne Campaign Insulting Names Peter Pan Herbaceous Communication Papa Was a Saxum Volutum Flying Peters Venezuela and Venus and Venice What News on the Rialto? Magazines Dick Snary Autopeotomy Water Closets for Russia Fat Gunhilda Queen Gunhilda and the Gadgets Shell In a Nutshell The Iliad The Human Body The Five Fingers Hoax Bodies Bunking and Debunking The Anglo-Saxon Mystery The Sedge-strewn Stream and Globalisation Coffee Cappuccino Monks Called to the Bar. IgnoramiFossil-less The Frequentative Suffix Pending Worms and their Turnings Mathematics Stellafied and Oily Beavers Beards Islands Sandwich Islands The French Revolution in English Words Romance Languages Peripatetic Peoples From Bohemia to California (via Primrose Hill) California The Hash Guys Drugs Pleasing Psalms Biblical Errors Salt Halcyon Days Dog Days Cynical Dogs Greek Education and Fastchild Cybermen Turning Trix Amateur Lovers Dirty Money Death-pledges Wagering War Strapped for Cash Fast Bucks and Dead Ones The Buck Stops Here. Back to Howth Castle and EnvironsQuizzes The Cream of the Sources.