Some surprising revelations about word histories | Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends

And who says so | Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends | David Wilton

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	• Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends David Wilton Oxford University Press, USA, 2004 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Interesting....

As an english professor and avid reader, I enjoy having this resource available to my classes. It fits well with etymology lessons, especially when students ask the origin of certain phrases or cite some "urban legend" about a word's source.

Some surprising revelations about word histories

Word Myths, as its title suggests, is in the debunking business. Mr. Wilton populates this book with popular explanations for the origin of common words and phrases which turn out to be wrong.

For example, he argues that "SOS" never stood for anything like Save Our Ship or Save Our Souls -- "SOS", as it turns out, was just easy to tap out in Morse Code.

Another example: he demonstrates that Coca Cola never translated the name for their trademark drink as "bite the wax tadpole" in China.

I learned quite a few etymologies reading through this book. It's carefully researched and thoughtfully organized.

If I have one criticism of the book, it's that some of the explanations drag on for much longer than they need to. Where Mr. Wilton faced a decision between academic completeness and a brief witticism, he too often decided on the former. This is a book that begs to be written playfully (the cartoons which open each chapter set the visual tone perfectly), but for some reason just isn't.

Still, the book is worth a quick read to discover that the things you thought you knew turn out to be, as the author calls them, linguistic urban legends.

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And who says so

I don't know if the title is an intentional play on words (wordsmiths in this case) but I found "Word Myths, debunking linguistic urban legends" by David Wilton a delightful and easy read.

Wilson begins by explaining how word myths come about and that they are really a significant subset of all urban legends and e-mail hoaxes which themselves come from a line of tall tales and Xerox fables. He also explains that debunking word myths is a thankless task since so many of the tales we hear, we WANT to believe and do not easily forgive those who attempt to correct our beliefs.

"Word Myths" covers such diverse topics as whether picnic refers to a Southern lynching party, whether pumpernickel has something to do with Napoleon's horse, and whether a tinker's damn should really be spelled ticker's dam. Most cases in the book are selected because they are wrong or highly suspect. But a few are verified as possible or even probable. Like a good scientist, Wilson doesn't like to ever conclude that something is definitely proven. He does feel that some word myths can definitely be disproven -usually because the chronology of when it first shows up in the language.

This would be a fun coffee table or back of the toilet type of book. But it even makes for good armchair reading.

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I was surpirsed how many I knew - incorrectly

We have all heard stories of where different words and phrases originated. Some are quite fascinating and most are at least somewhat logical. The problem is that many of these legends are simply wrong. With a long list of word myths that include "dirt poor", "devil to pay", "under the weather", "real McCoy", "squaw", and "kangaroo" it is a fascinating read that not only debunks the traditional myths but also, where possible, supplies the correct origin of the word or phrase. Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends is hard to put down once you get started and thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end - highly recommended.

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reviews: 1, page 2, 3

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