Overview

How many people know how to pronounce humhumunukunukuapuaa*? How many even know what it is? Bill Casselman does. Dictionary in hand, he'll lead you along the highways and byways of English--the world's wackiest, most widespread language. And those who follow will find their vocabularies replete with sesquipedalian vocables and chock-a-block with euphuistic lexemes of logorrheic. From dobdob to dikdik to the outer reaches of ning-nong and prick-me-dainty, in wide-ranging essays explaining hundreds of words and expressions, both common and obscure, Casselman revels in the strange, the surreal, and the mind-bogglingly weird. You are invited to rootle in odd words and to explore amusing anecdotes about familiar phrases (Who knows the origin of the sports phrase ""hat trick""?) You'll laugh along with Casselman as he celebrates the wonders, the complexities, and the absurdities of our amazing language. (*Incidentally, humhumunukunukuapuaa is a Hawaiian term that means ""little trigger fish with a small nose like a pig."")

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9781440506369

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Bill Casselman is one of Canda's leading etymologists. He spent 22 years as a writer, director and producer for CBC Radio and CBC TV. He has published ten books on the origins of Canadian words and sayings, three of them bestsellers He is also the author of a medical dictionary and numerous magazine and newspaper columns and articles. He is a columnist at Vocabula, the leading American online word magazine.

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