AN "ECONOMIST" BOOK OF THE YEAR
"The Secret Life of Words "is a wide-ranging account of the
transplanted, stolen, bastardized words we've come to know as the
English languag. It's a history of English as a whole, and of the
thousands of individual words, from more than 350 foreign tongues,
that trickled in gradually over hundreds of years of trade,
colonization, and diplomacy. Henry Hitchings narrates the story
from the Norman Conquest to the present day, chronicling the
English language as a living archive of human experience.
A SAMPLE OF THE THOUSANDS OF STORIES BEHIND THE WORDS:
- Alcatraz Island was named by a Spanish explorer who arrived in
1775 to find the island covered with pelicans, or "alcatraces." And
"alcatraces"? The word goes back to the Arabic "al-qadus," which
was a bucket used in irrigation that resembled the bucket beaks of
pelicans.
- What does a walnut have to do with walls? The word comes from
the Old English walhnutu, meaning foreign nut. They were originally
grown in Italy and imported, and the northern Europeans named them
to distinguish them from the native hazelnut.
- A crayfish is not a fish. The name comes from the old French
word "crevice," through the Old German "crebiz "and the modern
French "ecrevisse." The "fish" part is just the result of a
mishearing."
"The Secret Life of Words "is a wide-ranging chronicle of how words
witness history, reflect social change, and remind us of our
past.
Henry Hitchings was born in 1974. He is the author of "Defining
the World "and has contributed to many newspapers and
magazines.
An "Economist" Best Book of the Year
Words are essential to our everyday lives. An average person spends
his or her day enveloped in conversations, e-mails, phone calls,
text messages, directions, headlines, and more. But how often do we
stop to think about the origins of the words we use? Have you ever
thought about which words in English have been borrowed from
Arabic, Dutch, or Portuguese? Try "admiral," "landscape," and
"marmalade," just for starters. "The Secret Life of Words" is a
wide-ranging account not only of the history of English language
and vocabulary, but also of how words witness history, reflect
social change, and remind us of our past. Henry Hitchings delves
into the insatiable, ever-changing English language and reveals how
and why it has absorbed words from more than 350 other
languages--many originating from the most unlikely of places, such
as "shampoo" from Hindi and "kiosk "from Turkish. From the Norman
Conquest to the present day, Hitchings narrates the story of
English as a living archive of our human experience. He uncovers
the secrets behind everyday words and explores the surprising
origins of our most commonplace expressions. "The Secret Life of
Words" is a rich, lively celebration of the language and vocabulary
that we too often take for granted.
"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 focused 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."--"The New Yorker "
"Many will know that the word 'muscle' comes from the Latin for
'mouse' (rippling under the skin, so to speak). But what about
'chagrin', derived from the Turkish for roughened leather, or scaly
sharkskin. Or 'lens' which comes from the Latin 'lentil' or
'window' meaning 'eye of wind' in old Norse? Looked at closely, the
language comes apart in images, like those strange paintings by
Giuseppe Arcimboldo where heads are made of fruit and vegetables.
Not that Henry Hitchings's book is about verbal surrealism. That is
an extra pleasure in a book which is really about the way the
English language has roamed the world helping itself liberally to
words, absorbing them, forgetting where they came from, and moving
on with an ever-growing load of exotics, crossbreeds and subtly
shaded near-synonyms. It is also about migrations within the
language's own borders, about upward and downward mobility, about
words losing their roots, turning up in new surroundings, or lying
in wait, like 'duvet' which was mentioned by Samuel Johnson, for
their moment . . . At every stage, the book is about people and
ideas on the move, about invasion, refugees, immigrants, traders,
colonists and explorers. This is a huge subject and one that is
almost bound to provoke question-marks and explosions in the
margins--soon forgotten in the book's sheer sweep and scale . . .
The author's zest and grasp are wonderful. He makes you want to
check out everything . . . Whatever is hybrid, fluid and unpoliced
about English delights him."--"The Economist
""There's not a word in English that isn't furled-up history,
resonating to some degree withits notorious unfairness and spin.
Indeed, to peer into words is to discover dioramas of vanished
worlds with model people busily framing meaning to suit their own
purposes. I have never read a book that so perfectly reveals those
hidden worlds as Henry Hitching's "The Secret Life of Words: How
English Became English." The book follows the 'pedigree and career'
of the English language through history, exposing its debt to
invasions, to threats from abroad, and to an island people's
dealings with the world beyond its shores. In doing this, Hitchings
lays bare the general spirit of acquisitiveness that informs
English as no other language. But, for all that, his true object is
to reveal past frames of mind and to show how our present outlook
is informed by the history squirreled away in the words we use.
This is an enormous undertaking, and Hitchings does it with deft
command. He begins with the familiar story of how the basic fabric
of English was woven from Germanic Anglo-Saxon and French Norman
threads, and how the social hierarchy of those groups is reflected
in words: those derived from Anglo-Saxon being neutral and earthy;
those from Norman French smacking of sophistication and ease. It's
all English; nonetheless, the most persistent acrimony over keeping
English free of foreign contamination is internecine: Anglo-Saxon
derived words are generally considered purer and stronger, more
oaken as you might say, than French-derived ones, which are
'artificial, barbarous and infused with the dark scent of
depravity.' Centuries of cross-channel animosity exist in this
prejudice, efflorescing (to use an un-oaken word) now and again in
eccentric partisans of Anglo-Saxon. Hitchings presents us, for
instance, with the 19th-century clergyman William Barnes, who
'preferred wheelsaddle to bicycle and folkwain to omnibus.' For
him, pathology was painlore and forceps were nipperlings. The book
is full of that sort of entertainment. But Hitchings goes well
beyond curious tales to penetrating discussions of changes in
consciousness, o
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