Word Drops: A Sprinkling of Linguistic Curiosities PDF
From aardvark to zenzizenzizenzic, Word Drops collects a thousand obscure phrases and language info in a single fascinating chain of phrase associations. Do you know, for instance, that scandal derives from the Latin for “stumbling block” and initially described a lure for a wild animal? In nineteenth-century slang a wolf lure was a corrupt on line casino. On line casino means “little home” in Italian. Roulette means “little wheel” in French. A wheeler is somebody who attends auctions to bid on gadgets merely to extend their sale worth. Such hyperlinks take readers on an sudden journey by linguistic oddities. Word Drops additionally makes use of an intriguing sequence of annotations so as to add background and historic context on all the pieces from Anglo-Saxon cures for madness to Samuel Pepys’s treatment for a hangover. This distinctive ebook will delight anybody who loves language, etymology, and phrase video games.
Format:PDF
Size:1.22 MB
Pages:298
Date:2015
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Word Drops: A Sprinkling of Linguistic Curiosities PDF
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