Casual Lex: An Informal Assemblage of Why We Say What We Say [Paperback]

Webb Garrison (Author)

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Product Details

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Thomas Nelson (May 9 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1401602185
ISBN-13: 978-1401602185
Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.9 x 1.8 cm
Shipping Weight: 249 g
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #866,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #62 in Books > Nonfiction > Education > Reference > Words & Language > Vocabulary, Slang, & Word Lists

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Product Description

So often we use words or phrases that, while we know what they mean, we dont know how they came into being. The story behind the word is often surprising and always interesting. Peoples fascination with language has never been greater as proven by the response to the best-selling Eats, Shoots, and Leaves. This retitled, repackaged, updated and slightly revised favorite will please that growing market. This new edition features a new design, inside and out, and timely updating of the most interesting words and phrases in Why You Say It and Whats In a Word. Featured are such words and phrases as Alibi, Bikini, Capricious, Diddly-squat, Fiasco, Goon, Hip, Loophole, Maudlin, Spam, Taboo, Windfall, and 488 more. The entries are short enough for casual perusal and complete enough to give the whole story of where these words and phrases originated.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com ^(beta)

Amazon.com: 3.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A mixture of good, dubious, wrong, and "so what?", Feb 22 2006

By Robert C. Baruch - Published on Amazon.com

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This review is from: Casual Lex: An Informal Assemblage of Why We Say What We Say (Paperback)

Do you know where the phrase "Achilles' heel" came from? If you're at least past fourth grade in the U.S., you sure do. Hey, do you know where the word "apocalyptic" came from? Guess what, it's from the Greek!

The book is filled with words and figures of speech we commonly use, and explanations of where they came from. Some explanations are simple etymologies, and not at all interesting. Some stories are fairly good.

Others are dubious, such as the explanation for "gung ho". I had always assumed it was a corruption of a Chinese phrase by American military personnel, and I can find no evidence to the contrary, except in this book which claims that "A few Europeans managed to get into China as soon as westerners began to be tolerated. All such visitors were awed by the Great Wall and other public works constructed by human labor. Big projects still under way employed vast numbers of coolies. At an overseer's signal, they shouted 'gung ho!' in unison in order to synchronize movements."

Somehow I think that "a few Europeans" hardly saw a bunch of Chinese workers building something, and took the 'gung ho' phrase home with them.

Among the blatantly false derivations is that of "spam", reputed to be applied to junk e-mail because the food from Hormel of the same name was known as "junk meat". And here we all thought it's an analogy between the Monty Python sketch about Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Eggs and Spam, and the annoying, pointless nature of electronic spam.

And don't even get me started on the entry for "hacker". Just this one sentence ought to prove that this guy is just making things up: "Today's hacker may spend days or weeks _repeatedly striking_ a computer system for purposes of harm..." (emphasis added to show how far the author has to reach).

In conclusion, this "half-baked" book seems to be filled with "slip-shod" work and "farfetched" entries "to boot". "Make no bones" about it, don't pull your money out of the "piggy bank" for this "wooden nickel".

› Go to Amazon.com to see the review 3.0 out of 5 stars