Words of a Feather

Words of a Feather - A Humorous Puzzlement of Etymological Pairs, in case you were wondering, is for people who like to play with words. Or who like the play of words. Pairs of words. Pairs of words you wouldn't think belong paired up. Like, for example, computer, and reputation. I extract:

"It's deliciously apt that the tarnishing of his reputation (HAL, the computer in 2001) is what pushes the computer over the edge, for both reputation and computer trace back to the Latin phrase putare, "to reckon," a word that encompasses solving mathematical and moral problems, implied in the phrase 'day of reckoning.'"

"Ah," you probably are saying to yourself, "how apt, how deliciously apt."

If in fact you find such aptness delicious, Words of a Feather will prove to be a conceptual banquet of conversation-worthy tidbits. "Which reminds me," you might say in answer to the question "why are you late for dinner," "did you know that senate and senile are etymologically related, and that it wasn't until the mid-nineteenth century that senile acquired the meaning of 'weak or infirm from age.'"

Written by Murray Suid, author of over 25 books, including Demonic Mnemonics - Eight Hundred Spelling Tricks for Eight Hundred Tricky Words, and an old friend of mine when I was working in Philadelphia some 35 years ago, the book reflects a deep love of language and learning, and, most significantly, a thorough appreciation for the incongruous.

Page after page of entertaining reflections on connections between words that simply shouldn't belong together - coronation and coroner, mercenary and mercy, stupendous and stupid - Words of a Feather is playful enough to make you want to flock to your local bookseller.

Should you need more incentive, wing your way to the Words of a Feather website.



from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith