The word spy : come and discover the secrets of the English language (2008)

Delightful! ( )

Thoughts and Feelings: Delightful! Simply delightful! I had to write the thoughts and feelings section of this review first because I didn't think I could write a retelling without expressing my enthusiasm for this book like it was fact. I'm passionate about language, writing, and logic and English spelling has never made any sense to me. At least now I have some idea why the language is so poorly planned, and why I have to live with it. Also... FUCH SUN (spoonerism)! I felt more like I was raying than pleading.

Review: The word snoop answers questions about how the rules of spelling the English language seem to have so many exceptions. She explains why English is so strange, how punctuation came about and how it's used. Then, she celebrates all the magical fun this quirky language and alphabet invites with anagrams, pangrams, lipograms, acronyms, backronyms, palindromes, Mnemonics, Oxymorons, Pig Latin, the Rebus, Rhyming Slang, Puns, Homophones, Mondegreens, Onomatopoeias, Tongue Twisters, Portmanteau Words, Euphemisms, Doublespeak, Spoonerisms, Cliches, Tuatology, Nicknames, Eponyms, Tom Swifties, Malapropisms, Pen Names, Telegramese, Texting, and Emotocons. The end of every chapter has a word puzzle that you can solve and piece together to form a message. ( )

So much fun! This was a highly entertaining book on the history of the English language, and how fun language can be. There were some things I already knew, like acronyms, euphemisms, and pig latin, but I guarantee you that you will learn a lot of new tricks and interesting information in here, and it's written so well I really couldn't put it down at times, I was so hooked! One of my favorite parts were codes to break at the end of each chapter that go together to form a secret message from the author, and little quizzes/challenges throughout the book. Tons of fun, I highly recommend it! ( )

Book for kids. Not spoilable. Target audience was too young for the book to be one I would find enjoyable. It went fast.

http://homepage.mac.com/shawjonathan/iblog/C1020611578/E20080301184309/index.htm... ( )