Another Word a Day : An All-New Romp Through Some of the Most Unusual and Intriguing Words in English

by Garg, Anu

• ISBN13: 9780471718451
• ISBN10: 0471718459
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-04
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

A smorgasbord of surprising, obscure, and exotic words In this delightful encore to the national bestseller A Word A Day, Anu Garg, the founder of the wildly popular A Word A Day Web site (wordsmith.org), presents an all-new collection of unusual, intriguing words and real-life anecdotes that will thrill writers, scholars, and word buffs everywhere. Another Word A Day celebrates the English language in all its quirkiness, grandeur, and fun, and features new chapters ranging from "Words Formed Erroneously" and "Red-Herring Words" to "Kangaroo Words," "Discover the Theme," and "What Does That Company Name Mean?" In them, you'll find a treasure trove of curious and compelling words, including agelast, dragoman, mittimus, nyctalopia, quacksalver, scission, tattersall, and zugzwang. Each entry includes a concise definition, etymology, and usage example, interspersed with illuminating quotations. Praise for a word a day "Anu Garg's many readers await their A Word A Day rations hungrily. Now at last here's a feast for them and other verbivores. Eat up!" --Barbara Wallraff, Senior Editor at The Atlantic Monthly and author of Word Court "AWADies will be familiar with Anu Garg's refreshing approach to words: words are fun and they have fascinating histories." --John Simpson, Chief Editor, Oxford English Dictionary

Author Biography

ANU GARG is the founder of wordsmith.org, an online community of more than 600,000 word lovers in 200 countries, now in its twelfth year. He is the author of the bestselling book A Word A Day (Wiley). Garg speaks frequently about words and language internationally.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

1. Words to Describe People I.

2. Earls Who Became Words (or Places That Became Words).

3. Words Having Origins in Chess.

4. Words That Appear to Be Misspellings of Everyday Words I.

5. Archaic Words.

6. Toponyms.

7. Words about Books and Writing.

8. Words Borrowed from Yiddish.

9. Terms from the World of Law.

10. Words That Appear to Be Misspellings of Everyday Words II.

11. Words Borrowed from Arabic.

12. Words Formed Erroneously.

13. What’s in a Name?

14. Words from Poetry.

15. Fishy Words.

16. Discover the Theme I.

17. Terms Employing Various Nationalities.

18. Words with Double Connections.

19. Words Related to the Calendar.

20. False Friends.

21. Red-Herring Words.

22. Words Related to the Human Body.

23. Words Related to Buying and Selling.

24. Miscellaneous Words.

25. Words That Have Changed Meaning with Time.

26. Words about Words.

27. Anglo-Saxon Words.

28. Words Borrowed from Other Languages.

29. Words from Medicine.

30. Numeric Terms.

31. Kangaroo Words.

32. What Does That Company Name Mean?

33. Words with Interesting Etymologies.

34. Words to Describe People II.

35. Words about Collecting and the Study of Things.

36. Words from the World of Law II.

37. Words Derived from Other Languages.

38. Words about Words II.

39. Words Borrowed from African Languages.

40. Metallic Words Used as Metaphors.

41. Words Related to Movies.

42. Discover the Theme II.

43. Miscellaneous Words II.

44. Words That Aren’t What They Appear to Be.

45. Words of Horse-Related Origins.

46. Words of Horse-Related Origins II.

47. Words with Origins in War.

48. Words from Latin.

49. Words to Describe Your Opponents.

50. Discover the Theme III.

51. Words Borrowed from Native American Languages.

52. Loanwords from Spanish.

Answers.

Web Resources: More Fun with Words.

Index of Words.