Book Review

The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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 Wodehouseand 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.

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