Logodaedaly, or Sleight-of-words

by Gilbert, Erzsebet; Talbott, Sherise

• ISBN13: 9780982337295
• ISBN10: 0982337299
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-12-05
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub Co

Summary

What is a "balanoid"? Who carries an "ombrifuge" into a storm? How is a "filipendulous" city destroyed? These and other fabulous questions are found in Logodædaly, or, Sleight-of-Words: a dictionary of the imagination. Within its pages, young author Erzsébet Gilbert has delved into the history of the English language to unearth a host of forgotten, quirky, obsolete and utterly bizarre words, and created a phrasebook like no other. It is a dictionary whose entries are not merely words, but the fantastical stories and wild musings behind them-a dictionary of two-headed serpents and royal assassins, warrior birds and people on the moon, specters and true love.As vividly antiquated as it is experimental, the ornately designed book features the original images-from dragons to hummingbirds-of artist Sherise Talbott, illuminations whose intricacy and style might have emerged from the museums of centuries ago. Through Logodaedalyone might not learn an everyday vocabulary, but beyond A and Z the reader finds that the meaning of a word is always much more than it seems.