It's a Wonderful Word

Sep 30, 2024 1:19 AM

Author:Albert Jack

Did you know that an assassin is a hashish-eater and a yokel a country woodpecker?

That Dr Mesmer mesmerised patients back to health or that Samuel Pepys enjoyed a good game of handicap?

While we're at it, what have spondulics to do with spines or lawyers with avocados?

In It's a Wonderful Word, bestselling author Albert Jack collects over 500 of the strangest, funniest-sounding and most delightful words in the English language, and traces them back to their often puzzling origins. While brushing up on your gibberish or gobbledygook, discover why bastards should resent travelling salesmen, why sheets should remain on tenterhooks and why you should never set down a tumbler before finishing your drink.

From blotto to bamboozle and from claptrap to quango, Albert Jack's addictive anecdotes bring the world's most colourful language to life and are guaranteed to surprise and entertain.

Reviews

Fascinating ... a trove of riveting facts.

—— Daily Mail

It’s a bracing read. Heffer takes no linguistic prisoners. This is a useful, well-constructed and often absorbing book.

—— Spectator

Simply English is much more readable than a reference book has a right to be ... basically Simply English is rather good.

—— Observer

Advice that will change for ever the way you use certain words.

—— New Statesman

Easy to use and terribly hard to put down ... Essential.

—— The Field

Great editor: great teacher of editors

—— Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement

Harry Evans is the journalist we all wanted to be. He could write, sub, design, re-write, think - everything short of standing on the streets and selling the paper himself. Essential English has for generations been the bible of any aspiring Harry Evans. It is as fresh today as it was when it was first published nearly thirty years ago

—— Alan Rusbridger, Editor-in-Chief, Guardian

Welcome back to the standard and brilliant text on written English for journalism. Good writing is good writing, and Harold Evans is a good writer, when all around are letting standards slip. Essential English should be essential reading for all journalism students, and all journalists who seek to improve their writing

—— Peter Cole, Professor of Journalism, University of Central Lancashire

Eager, conscientious, affectionate… Endearingly old-fashioned in its family piety, protective partisanship and unembellished decency… A work that murmurs and sidles in a self-effacing tone… A likeable, informative and poignant book that Findlay is uniquely suited to have written

—— Richard Davenport-Hines , Literary Review

There is a tenderness with which [Findlay] cherishes even the most inconsequential events… Fitting tribute

—— Jonathan Beckman , Daily Telegraph

Entertaining

—— Financial Times

Findlay’s welcome biography reveals him to be a fascinating character… Admirably and engagingly fulfils its brief

—— Peter Parker , Oldie

A revealing portrait of an extraordinary man

—— Independent

Findlay ably amplifies her portrait with family history and evocations of the Edwardian literary scene

—— New Yorker

Respectful and sympathetic

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday

Compelling

—— Clive Aslet , Country Life

A colourful treatment of a colourful life

—— Lady

Personal and affectionate tribute

—— Sally Morris , Daily Mail

Affectionate, familial tribute to this many-sided man.

—— The Catholic Herald

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