A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Language

by Beverly Tjerngren

Yesterday afternoon I was over at a friend's house for coffee and while she busied herself in the kitchen, I looked through her bookshelves (didn't someone once say that was the only socially-acceptable form of snooping?). Tucked in among the novels and medical texts--she's a pharmacy student--was one volume that particularly caught my eye: The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories. Just the title is delicious.

Like any writer, I love words. I love words about words. I've been known to read the dictionary for fun, so when I pulled Word Histories from the shelf and read the Book Report review on the front cover, "A joy for reference or serendipitous browsing," I knew this was a book for me. I started turning pages avidly, one thing leading to another in often-unexpected ways. Did you know, for instance, that the words "dairy" and "lady" have common origins? Or that "gregarious" and "egregious" are related and that the latter originally meant distinguished in a good way, until that pesky Shakespeare turned it around?

I could spend days on end reading this book. I've scarcely put it down since I came home yesterday with it stashed in my baby's diaper bag (with my friend's permission, of course). I did take a break to order a copy for myself, since I could tell after just a few minutes that this was a book that no writer's shelves should be without.