Thereby Hangs a Tale: Stories of Curious Word Origins - Couverture rigide

Funk, Charles Earle

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1443731501 ISBN 13 : 9781443731508

Editeur : Read Books, 2008

Synopsis

THIS book is the outcome of a collection of material that has been slowly accumulating over the past thirty years or so, since the time when, under the guidance of the late Dr. Frank H. Vizetelly, I began to work as his associate in the editorial department of the Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary. The ancestry of most of the words that we now use glibly or find in books or other current literature, is prosaic. We can trace their lines of descent back to Old English, or Old French, or Latin, or Greek, or other ancient source, but beyond the bare bones supplied by etymologists, which indicate those sources, and the steps by which they became English words, the dictionaries tell us little-for there is little more that can be told. The ancient Roman or Greek, say, who may have been the first to use a word that has strayed on to us, perhaps could have told the story of its origin. It may have been picturesque, based upon some historic episode, like the word anecdote; it may have come from a tale in some older language, for the languages that we consider ancient were themselves based upon still more ancient sources, but that story, if any, cannot now be determined. Thus what we know about the origins of the great majority of the words in our present language can be found in an unabridged dictionary or in a work dealing with etymologies, such as that compiled by W. W. Skeat about seventy years ago, or the one more recently prepared by Ernest Weekley.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

The Greek root of school means leisure.

A language where hearse and rehearse have the same root and the word dunce comes from a great philosopher, English has hundreds of every day words that originated or acquired their meaning in unusual ways. Dictionaries don't have the space to tell us all the mysteries, but now Dr. Funk, with humor and insight, tells us the strange and intriguing stories of hundreds of words and how they came to be a part of our language.

Biographie de l'auteur

Charles Earle Funk was editor in chief of the Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary Series. He wrote several other books on word and phrase origins, including Horsefeathers, Heavens to Betsy!, and Thereby Hangs a Tale.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Read Books
• Date d'édition: 2008
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1443731501
• ISBN 13: 9781443731508
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 320
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: KreGa Onlinehandel GmbH; 4950000000000; info@krega-onlinehandel.de; ; Birkenweg 31; Brakel; 33034; Allemagne