Comments:
6
Sounds like I would probably like it. I wish my library carried this but I think it's going to be one I have to buy. This aspect of the language has more then once intrigued me but none of my teachers could explain where the terms had come from or why we use certain ones. I'm hoping this book can answer at least some of that.
It does, sometimes in numbing detail, which isn't the dig it sounds like it is. It's not the information, but the communication of it that sometimes gets a bit tedious. But yes, he does give quite a bit of history behind a lot of the older terms, using various sources, including the OED.
Sounds like what I want! I know my library doesn't have it so I'll be looking for it at the bookstore.
Have you tried reading to yourself with a James Lipton accent? That's what I have to do with Henry Kissinger.
Lol.. I did hear his voice in my head as I read it, I couldn't help it. His enthusiasm is obvious, but when he starts debating the merits of the different arguments by different sources for the origin of one term or another, his voice doesn't help quite as much, as it just gets hard to follow when it's written in his flowery style.
I own the book and I find myself consulting it occasionally. Even if I don't need to, it's fun, kind of a dictionary of plurals.
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