{"id":4461,"date":"2009-07-24T12:37:54","date_gmt":"2009-07-24T09:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eltweekly.com\/more\/?p=364"},"modified":"2009-07-24T12:37:54","modified_gmt":"2009-07-24T09:37:54","slug":"eltweekly-issue27-book-of-the-week-the-secret-life-of-words-how-english-became-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/?p=4461","title":{"rendered":"ELTWeekly Issue#27, Book of the Week: The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English<\/strong><\/p>\n

By\u00a0Henry Hitchings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editorial Reviews<\/strong><\/p>\n

From\u00a0The New Yorker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This historical tour of the English lexicon considers words as etymological fossils of past dreams and traumas, revealing the preoccupations of the ages that produced them. The nineteenth century’s cult of fine feelings gave currency to sensibility and physiognomy; popery and libertine sprang from the religious skepticism of the sixteen-hundreds. Many such relics began as imports: centuries of Anglophone empire-building have occasioned borrowings from some three hundred and fifty languages, including Arabic (sash) and Sanskrit (pundit). The chapters are loosely focussed on different themes, but trade is a constant thread: tycoon comes from taikun, a Japanese honorific picked up on Commodore Matthew Perry’s eighteen-fifties mission to open the ports of Japan. Hitchings offers a rich array of anecdotes and extracts, but the absence of a strong over-all argument deprives his account of momentum.
\nCopyright \u00a92008 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker<\/em> –This text refers to the\u00a0Hardcover<\/a> edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From\u00a0Booklist<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

What Hitchings shows us is that the history of our vocabulary is the history of who\u00a0we really are.\u00a0Playing up the \u201cacquisitiveness of English,\u201d which has proved hospitable to words from more than 350 other languages, his book has a wide sweep, from pre-Roman Britain to\u00a0online communities.\u00a0Each chapter\u00a0tends to address a particular influx of words, whether rooted in invasion and conquest or in\u00a0the innovative use of the language by gifted writers. A chapter called \u201cAngst\u201d not only covers the twentieth century\u2019s contribution to the vocabulary via the military, advertising, technology, and the business world, it also incorporates, in digressive but entertaining fashion,\u00a0the history of coffee,\u00a0a caustic evisceration of \u201cmanagement speak,\u201d and an explanation of why purists are so resistant to new words. Ever ready with\u00a0an apt quote, Hitchings makes a delightful and knowledgeable guide, privy to many fascinating facts about the language\u2014those averse to the increasing power of technophiles\u00a0are given a handful of pithy put-downs, including dot snots and entrepenerds. A well-researched, fluidly written book that wears its scholarship lightly. –Joanne Wilkinson\u00a0–This text refers to the\u00a0Hardcover<\/a> edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

Book Details<\/strong><\/p>\n