The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

I am a uge etymology fan - books, podcasts, etc. This is a great read if you like words and word origins

I purchased this book in audio format first, and loved it so much, I had to be able to read it. I then bought the Kindle version. Wanting a way to be able to flip around more quickly, add annotations and underlines of my own, I capitulated and purchased the physical book. Worth every penny! Amazing! The author is an obvious genius and he uses his encyclopedic knowledge and sharp sense of humor to bring the hidden and colorful history of our amazing language to life. Irreverant, snarky, witty, biting and sublime; a fun romp through history, common culture and delicious arcana lurking behind every syllable! A masterpiece of scholarship and humor.

I started reading this several years ago and just got bogged down. I finally decided to take a running go at it and actually finish it. As an English language teacher and overall English geek, I find word origins fascinating. The author certainly does an amazing job developing connections throughout the English language doing so in pithy and humorous chapters. However, I would say that the book should be considered more as entertainment than education (though there were certainly several things that I learned along the way). My only negative comment is that the author's "circular stroll" can get a reader turned around very easily. The reason I could not finish it the first time I attempted reading it was that I simply could not keep up with the author's logic. This is something that really has to be read in a fairly brief amount of time. It is not something that I would say can easily be put down and then picked up some time later. Overall, I enjoyed the book and think that most other word nerds would as well.

This book is highly recommended, as it is both informative and entertaining.

This was a lot of rabbit trails, but interesting. English is a very greedy language. It borrows from many languages and changes them. Very Interesting!

Forsyth’s sense of humor and brilliance of the etymological development of languages is unparalleled. I have not read the book entirely yet but it’s a laugh out loud read while he brilliantly explains how, why and where the development of terminology in the English language occurred in meticulous detail. I’m looking forward to his quizzes in the back of the book!

I learned a few things not found in other sources, but it also repeated many well-known stories as if they were revelations

I love Mark Forsyth books. He is an incredibly fun nonfiction, writer, as well as being charming, amusing, and fascinating.

A recondite, yet risqué romp through the remote origins of the English language as we know today. Without being too pedantic, it hilariously segues from one term to a related word in a flippant and chatty style. It is quite informative but side-splitting in the venerable British humorous style of P G Wodehouse and Douglas Adams. Here is a gem – a medieval recipe from 1450: Puddyng of Porpoise. Take the Blode of hym, & the grece of hym self, & Oatmeal, & Salt, & Pepir, & Gyngere, & melle these togetherys wel, & then put this in the Gut of the Porpoise, & then lat it seethe esyli, & not hare, a good while: & then take hym up, & broyle hym a lyti, & then serve forth. This is an example of an antanaclasic sentence (it keeps using the same word in different senses; get the book for the details): Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. One term needs to be corrected from autopenotomy to autopenectomy. Again, get the book for further elucidation – it has a connection to the creators of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The etymologicon (que j'ai déjà en livre et que je conseille à toutes celles et tous ceux qui lisent l'anglais et s'y intéressent) est un plaisir d'écoute aussi passionnant pour l'érudition de Mark Forsyth que pour son humour subtilement distillé en maître. Je suis de ceux qui pensent qu'il est pédant (non seulement au sens de personne qui aime étaler sa culture mais également d'une fatuité un rien dérangeante) et qu'il n'est pas avare de compliments...à son égard. Force est d'admettre qu'il a du talent à intéresser et garder en haleine son lectorat en expliquant de fort nombreuses étymologies et qu'il a parfois de véritables traits de génie dans la rédaction. Mieux vaut le lire ou l'écouter mais, dans ce dernier cas, pas sur son site où il agace un peu pour les raisons invoquées plus haut. Concernant l'article, il contient 6 CDs un peu chers à mon goût; le livre est plus abordable et possède la qualité évidente de présenter l'orthographe des mots inconnus (puisque peu ou plus utilisés, surtout le premier que je ne dévoilerai pas pour seulement inciter à lire mais sans aucunement renier votre achat de l'audio !). Et pour plagier ses boutades je vous dirai: "si vous voulez l'audio...c'est à vous de voir !"

For anyone who really loves words and their meanings and histories, like myself, this book is a must-read. I loved it! It's light, entertaining, fascinating and educational, written in a smooth, amusing (dry humour but certainly NOT a dry read), witty style, rather chummy, as if you were talking to your buddy down the pub who happens to be a word nerd. The Etymologicon is for anyone who has ever asked why you can be disgruntled but not gruntled, what humble pie actually is, or where swear words come from. A winner!

Wonderfully informative and entertaining book. Takes a clever person to make this subject entertaining and he does it well.

Un libro curioso, spiega le origini di alcune parole inglesi proponendo agganci con la lingua francese, italiana e tedesca, oltre che al latino e al greco e ad un sacco di altre lingue. Fortunatamente l'autore, benché rigoroso, riesce a mantenere una scrittura leggera e qualche volta anche scherzosa, rendendo il libro molto gradevole da leggere. Ad esempio, lo sapevate che la parola biscotto deriva dal francese "bi cuit" che vuol dire cotto due volte? Adesso che lo avete letto appare evidente, ma quanti di voi lo sapevano già da prima? Se siete dei tipi curiosi questo è il libro che fa per voi. Attenzione però: Il libro è scritto In inglese.