The library building may be open from 9:00 am
to 5:00 pm, but being a librarian involves a set of skills that aren’t always
easy to switch off. When I’m not being a librarian in the workplace, I find
that I’m most often engaged as an etymologist for friends and family. In other
words, I’m the go-to person when someone wants to know the history of a word
beyond the simple definition. Luckily for them, I find etymology, or the
history of words, fascinating.
There are a lot of interesting books and resources
about the history of words, phrases, and their uses. Stay with me, I know
dictionaries aren’t everyone’s idea of a good time, but there’s some
fascinating, occasionally sordid and often amusing, history behind the things
we say. The Oxford English Dictionary, for instance, is arguably the unshakable
bastion propping up the English language, the last word on all English
definitions. The OED has been around forever, right? And is the product of the
most learned, scholarly minds in academia? No, and…qualified yes. In fact, the
OED project began in 1857 and took seventy years to complete, included the
contributions of tens of thousands of people, and organized the English
language into 414,825 precise definitions (there are over 615,000 word forms
now by the way, with new words added every year). However, one of the largest
contributors never joined the team of professors at Oxford University, despite
numerous invitations to do so, choosing instead to submit all his entries by
mail. Lo and behold, this man, important contributor to our literary history,
was clinically insane, a murderer, locked up in England’s harshest asylum for
criminal lunatics. The whole tale is spun out in Simon Winchester’s “The
Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the
Oxford English Dictionary.” Want to know more? Winchester delves deeper into
the brilliant minds that crafted the OED, offering little known anecdotes (who
knew “marzipan” would be so difficult to define?) and interesting bits of knowledge
in his book, “The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English
Dictionary.”
My favorite on-the-go quick reference for
etymology is a website called the Online Etymology Dictionary, found by
visiting www.etymonline.com. These folks really do their research, and their word histories
are legitimate enough to be quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary. The Online
Etymology Dictionary is an optimal way to satisfy your curiosity on a whim, and
also to settle friendly arguments about word usage (I’m not the only person who
has these arguments, right?)
While the Online Etymology Dictionary covers
many, many words, you’re not as likely to find the history of phrases
catalogued. Why in the world to we say “it’s raining cats and dogs” during a
heavy rain? To learn more about the etymology of idioms and other phrases, try
“Common Phrases and Where They Come From” by Myron Korach. Spoiler: “let her
rip” does not mean what you think it means.
Speaking of cats and dogs, there are an awful
lot of words and phrases in English relating to animals. If this piques the
interest of all you animal lovers, check out “Dog Days and Dandelions: A Lively
Guide to the Animal Meanings Behind Everyday Words” by Martha Barnette, or “Six
Words You Never Knew Had Something to Do with Pigs, and Other Fascinating Facts
About the English Language” by Katherine Barber.
If you’ve stuck with me this far, you might be
interested in a couple more etymological honorable mentions. “Bryson’s
Dictionary of Troublesome Words: a Writer’s Guide to Getting it Right” by Bill
Bryson is a solid fixture for word-nerds, and is a witty work Bryson fans won’t
want to miss; this was actually his first book. “Word Mysteries &
Histories, From Quiche to Humble Pie” by Robert Claiborne is also worth a look,
plus there are illustrations.
So, why care about etymology? If you’ve read
this far, then I probably don’t need to convince you of the importance and fun
of learning for learning’s sake. In addition, being able to whip out
interesting facts about word histories will impress your smart friends, and
earn you laughs at parties. Priorities, people. If you want a hand finding
these or other books, just ask a librarian. Or, feel free to browse the 423 call
number section on the Mezzanine level of the library.
