Charles Earle Funk (1881–1957)

The Greek root of school means leisure.A language where hearse and rehearse have the same root and the word dunce comes from a great philosopher, English has hundreds of every day words that originated or acquired their meaning in unusual ways. Dictionaries don't have the space to tell us all the mysteries, but now Dr. Funk, with humor and insight, tells us the strange and intriguing stories of hundreds of words and how they came to be a part of our language.

A fascinating trip down the history of our language's vocabulary and witticisms.

Tells the origins and meanings of many many sayings- over four hundred of them. It's a nice read especially if you are interested in etymology. The forward describes in detail how the author sought out the original meaning of the phrase "as independent as a hog on ice"; the rest of the entries simply outline what the final findings were. Most of the expressions I had heard before, a few were entirely unfamiliar to me. Some I had an idea where they came from, others it was the opposite of show more what I would have assumed. Lots are from political moments in history, old arcane practices, or mispronunciations of former word forms (many of the expressions are centuries old). In some cases the author found no evidence at all, so he surmised a best guess.

from the Dogear Diary show less

A fascinating trip down the history of our language's vocabulary and witticisms.