Unfortunate English: The Gloomy Truth Behind the Words You Use

This book on etymology is two books in one. Most of the time the book is highly interesting to those who want to know word origins. At other times it is confusing where word origins seem strained and the author's penchant for puns gets in the way of understanding.

Unfortunate English was an interesting read. I found myself sharing tidbits (or titbits actually) with my friends and family. Brohaugh really enjoys his puns as well as changing famous quotes to suit his purpose. For instance, "and now, one might say, these words fall upon death ears" introduces the section on torture and death.
There were only two problems I had with the book: One, some of the etymologies seemed far-fetched, like he was trying too hard to be able to add this or that word to the book or chapter when it really didn't belong. Two, he doesn't always give the current definition of a word, which can lead to confusion if you're not completely confident about what it means. (He tries to make jokes between the current show more definition and the former definition, but this doesn't work at all if you don't know the current meaning.) Both of these problems only occurred a few times throughout the book. show less

Not a bad (very) light read. It was interesting to learn about the strange (and sometimes fairly disgusting) origins of common English words. Interesting book.