History of Words

Are you a "word nerd"? Do you enjoy the arcane origins of word we use every day? If so, you might enjoy Thomas Nelson's book What's in a Word: Fascinating Stories of More Than 350 Everyday Words and Phrases, by Webb Garrison.

From Thomas Nelson's book description:

Have you ever woken up on the wrong side of the bed? Did you make it to that early morning meeting by the skin of your teeth? Was your heart in the right place when you proposed that idea, even though you couldn’t hold a candle to the guy next to you who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth?

If you’ve ever wondered what that word or phrase you just heard means, What’s in a Word? is just the book for you. If you love words, this fascinating and humorous encyclopedia of more than three hundred fifty words and phrases and how they evolved will keep you entertained for hours.

 The nice folks at Thomas Nelson sent me this book for review. I've had it for a few weeks, and due to my four children, it has migrated into the bathroom. Why? I suppose because it's the perfect read when you only have a few minutes. Most of the word histories are just a couple of paragraphs.

Though some of the explanations are fairly self-explanatory (i.e. "floppy disk"), other words had sources that I'd never known. Though a person who has studied etymology for years might think of this as light reading, I enjoyed it, and my children found it entertaining.