McDonald, James

New York. 1985. Watts. 1st Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0531097722. 293 pages. hardcover. . keywords: Reference Words . FROM THE PUBLISHER - Hidden away within dictionaries are a vast number of unlikely, surprising and even incredible stories about the origin of English words and phrases. James McDonald has produced a highly entertaining book, with each of some thirty chapters devoted to a single topic such as medicine, magic, law, religion, money, drink and sex. Liberally sprinkled with amusing stories, each chapter shows how the language associated with these topics has evolved over the ages. The chapter on drinks, for example, can tell you not only the origin of ‘groggy' (suffering from the effects of watered-down rum), Codswallop (drink sold in bottles of a type patented by Hiram Codd), but also the reason why a ‘Long Slow Comfortable Screw' should be so-called. Did you know ‘cretin' and ‘Christian' shared the same origin or that the exclamation ‘strewth' is really just a shorter form of God' truth? The Naughty Bits tells us of such losses to our language as the personal names ‘gildenballokes' and ‘scittebagge'. On a more serious note did you know that a bonfire was originally a bone-fire or that a hussy used to be no more than a housewife? Or that the phrase ‘to freeze the balls off a brass monkey' has perfectly respectable naval origins? Everyone who delights in the richness of the English language will find much to enjoy and learn from this book. inventory #6055 ISBN: 0531097722.