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World Wide Words Author Not Lost For Titles

One book, two titles: It is called Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds in the USA and Port Out, Starboard Home everywhere else. This is the book's description in the words of the author, Michael Quinion.
The cat’s pajamas, the bee’s knees, and the whole nine yards rolled into one, this true feast for word lovers skewers commonly accepted word-origin myths and etymological folk tales. Can it really be true that golf stands for “Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden”? Did the term computer bug really derive from an errant moth shorting out an early computer? Did the kangaroo really get its name through a misunderstanding between explorers and natives? The real story of the origin and evolution of a word or phrase is often much stranger than the commonly accepted one. The expressions that Michael Quinion reviews range throughout the English-speaking world, from cater-cornered to dinkum and from wet one’s whistle to happy as a clam. From the bawdy to the sublime, explanations and delightful asides truly prove that the proof is in the pudding. If you ever wondered about why we utter such oddities as raining cats and dogs, I could care less or twenty-three skidoo, this one’s for you. It’s a treasure trove of fiction and fact for anyone interested in language.
You can read a nice bit of it here, or go out to your favorite bookstore and read the whole thing there, or simply buy the book online.
Posted by abnu on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 @ 11:56 PM [ + ]

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