The Etymologicon - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Etymologicon write by Mark Forsyth. This book was released on 2012-10-02. The Etymologicon available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This perfect gift for readers, writers, and literature majors alike unearths the quirks of the English language. For example, do you know why a mortgage is literally a “death pledge”? Why guns have girls’ names? Why “salt” is related to “soldier”? Discover the answers to all of these etymological questions and more in this fascinating book for fans of of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The Etymologicon is a completely unauthorized guide to the strange underpinnings of the English language. It explains how you get from “gruntled” to “disgruntled”; why you are absolutely right to believe that your meager salary barely covers “money for salt”; how the biggest chain of coffee shops in the world connects to whaling in Nantucket; and what, precisely, the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening. This witty book will awake the linguist in you and illuminate the hidden meanings behind common words and phrases, tracing their evolution through all of their surprising paths throughout history.
The Illustrated Etymologicon
The Illustrated Etymologicon - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Illustrated Etymologicon write by Mark Forsyth. This book was released on 2021-11-04. The Illustrated Etymologicon available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A NEW, BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER, PUBLISHED ON ITS TENTH ANNIVERSARY. 'Witty and erudite ... stuffed with the kind of arcane information that nobody strictly needs to know, but which is a pleasure to learn nonetheless.' Nick Duerden, Independent. 'Particularly good ... Forsyth takes words and draws us into their, and our, murky history.' William Leith, Evening Standard. The Etymologicon is an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language. What is the actual connection between disgruntled and gruntled? What links church organs to organised crime, California to the Caliphate, or brackets to codpieces? Mark Forsyth's riotous celebration of the idiosyncratic and sometimes absurd connections between words is a classic of its kind: a mine of fascinating information and a must-read for word-lovers everywhere. 'Highly recommended' Spectator
The Horologicon
The Horologicon - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Horologicon write by Mark Forsyth. This book was released on 2012-11-01. The Horologicon available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER THE ETYMOLOGICON. ‘Reading The Horologicon in one sitting is very tempting’ Roland White, Sunday Times. Mark Forsyth presents a delightfully eccentric day in the life of unusual, beautiful and forgotten English words. From uhtceare in the hours before dawn through to dream drumbles at bedtime, The Horologicon gives you the extraordinary lost words you never knew you needed. Wake up feeling rough? Then you’re philogrobolized. Pretending to work? That’s fudgelling (which may lead to rizzling if you feel sleepy after lunch). A Radio 4 Book of the Week, The Horologicon is an eye-opening, page-turning celebration of the English language at its most endearingly arcane.
A Christmas Cornucopia
A Christmas Cornucopia - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook A Christmas Cornucopia write by Mark Forsyth. This book was released on 2016-11-03. A Christmas Cornucopia available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. BY THE SUNDAY TIMES NO.1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A SHORT HISTORY OF DRUNKENNESS Discover the unpredictable origins and etymologies of our Christmas customs this festive season. For something that happens every year of our lives, we really don't know much about Christmas. We don't know that the date we celebrate was chosen by a madman, or that Christmas, etymologically speaking, means "Go away, Christ". We're oblivious to the fact that the advent calendar was actually invented by a Munich housewife to stop her children pestering her for a Christmas countdown. And we would never have guessed that the invention of crackers was merely a way of popularising sweet wrappers. Luckily, like a gift from Santa himself, Mark Forsyth is here to unwrap this fundamentally funny gallimaufry of traditions and oddities, making it all finally make sense - in his wonderfully entertaining wordy way. 'Witty and revelatory. Blooming brilliant' Raymond Briggs 'Everything we ever thought about Christmas is wrong! Great stuff' Matthew Parris
A Short History of Drunkenness
A Short History of Drunkenness - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook A Short History of Drunkenness write by Mark Forsyth. This book was released on 2018-05-08. A Short History of Drunkenness available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. From the internationally bestselling author of The Etymologicon, a lively and fascinating exploration of how, throughout history, each civilization has found a way to celebrate, or to control, the eternal human drive to get sloshed “An entertaining bar hop though the past 10,000 years.”—The New York Times Book Review Almost every culture on earth has drink, and where there’s drink there’s drunkenness. But in every age and in every place drunkenness is a little bit different. It can be religious, it can be sexual, it can be the duty of kings or the relief of peasants. It can be an offering to the ancestors, or a way of marking the end of a day’s work. It can send you to sleep, or send you into battle. Making stops all over the world, A Short History of Drunkenness traces humankind’s love affair with booze from our primate ancestors through to the twentieth century, answering every possible question along the way: What did people drink? How much? Who did the drinking? Of the many possible reasons, why? On the way, learn about the Neolithic Shamans, who drank to communicate with the spirit world (no pun intended), marvel at how Greeks got giddy and Sumerians got sauced, and find out how bars in the Wild West were never quite like in the movies. This is a history of the world at its inebriated best.
