Why Do We Say It?

by Castle Books

How did lollypops get their name? What's long about a longshoreman? Why do we pass the buck? The answers are in this fascinating volume. The intriguing origins of hundreds of unusual words and expressions are here, organized in a handy alphabetical format. Useful for reference and fun just for browsing, Why Do We Say It? is also a great way to expand your vocabulary and enjoy doing it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Language, Linguistics, History, Trivia, Words

286 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1985

Reviews

[Suzie Sims-Fletcher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Out of date phrases and terms were the first disappointment with this book. The next was the, often, weak reason (answering "why"). Additionally, some of the "reasons" were simply - wrong. Furthermore, it seems to be rather British based.

[ALLEN · Rating 3 out of 5]

Any trivia fan knows that a book like this cannot but add something to our knowledge, but this one, based on familiar idioms and cliches, is a little too old and perhaps a little too British to be a top bar-bet contender. Useful for completionists and bargain-hunters.

[Edlira Dibrani · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book teaching us why do we say exact words in a certain way. It helped me very much, because English isnt my native language.

[Krlb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for a) settling arguments, b) helping you be the smart guy at any social gathering as someone utters an old saying and you high-jack the conversation by asking "do you know where that saying came from?", or c) a lot of fun, a little amazement, and a bit of education. It's essentially a combination dictionary and encyclopedia of familiar sayings, arranged in alphabetical order, accompanied by the likely origin(s) of the saying. Even thought it's concise, it's not a book to read at one sitting because there are so many entries and they become difficult to remember, just read one after another. On the other hand, it's an excellent reference, much like Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, and is a worthy candidate for a long life on your bookshelf.

[Alyssa Bond · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fun read. I learned a lot too!

[Evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little light reading from a thrift store find. It does seem that there are quite a few that I am not familiar with; many from the British Isles. I have always had a curiosity about the origins of words and popular phrases, so it was a fun read, but not, I think, in-depth.

[Skjam! · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the subtitle on the cover suggest, this book is about words and phrases used in English, and where they came from. It’s primarily in alphabetical order, except for some quizzes with answers at the back. While many of the entries are amusing or interesting, a few are just “we borrowed it from French, but pronounced or spelled a little differently.” Some of the word derivations are also a bit suspect,

This edition is put out by Castle Books, and was published in 1985. There’s no author listed, no sources cited, no index; your college professor is not going to accept this as a source for your research paper. From the typography, the writing style, the date of phrases not included, and some dated cultural assumptions, I believe this book is a reprint of one from the mid-1940s (Some of the catchier phrases haven’t been in common use since the 1920s!)

Overall, a fun book, but the serious student of etymology will need a better-cited volume; for entertainment purposes only.

While we’re at it, here’s five questions from the book. Can you answer them all?

Why is some cloth called “broadcloth”?
How did an unruly lock of hair come to be called a “cowlick”?
What is the origin of the expression “fair-weather friends”?
Why is a lively person said to be full of “ginger”?
Why do we call a celebrity a “bigwig”?

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always wondered where some of the saying we use came from. Very interesting but will have to read again later on. There is no way to remember all of them.

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and informative little book. My only real complaint is that the author, in his effort to keep the explanations concise, often leaves out important context that is necessary to a true understanding of the word/phrase in question. For example, his explanation of the phrase "Jump Over the Broomstick", while technically correct, omits any mention of the history of the phrase here in the United States; slaves often jumped over a broom as part of their marriage ceremony because they were not allowed to have a legal ceremony. To omit this information makes a full understanding of the phrase impossible because you lose a big part of the context.

Aside from such omissions, however, I found this book enjoyable, and I would gladly recommend it to anyone with an interest in etymology.

[William Schram · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why Do We Say It is a simple book on familiar phrases and words in the English Language. English is an old language, and a lot of its words and phrases are taken from other languages or mythological references. I'm familiar with a lot of them since English is my mother tongue, but several entries surprised me.

The publishers organized the book like a dictionary, where the entries are alphabetical. I don't know who edited it, I don't know who collected the information on any of the words, and I don't know if it was peer-reviewed or anything.

The book has quizzes at the end of some chapters. You can test your knowledge or make some guesses about earlier entries. I thought the book was average.

Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.

[Ishmael Soledad · Rating 1 out of 5]

I want to like this volume, honestly I do. Word and phrase origins are interesting and informative, and the roots of our language always valuable. But this volume misses, and by a long way. Too much American phraseology, far too many simple derivatives you can find in any dictionary (such as Latin or European language roots of words) and too many errors - glaring ones at that.

I only finished reading it because I don't like wasting money.

Avoid it. There's a reason there's no author attribution to this volume.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here we have the stories behind many of our well-known (and some not so well -known) sayings. Some I had heard before, some were new to me, and some just sounded like tall tales the author had made up. On the other hand I checked other sources on some of the more outlandish sounding ones and found them to be true (probably), so who knows. Maybe not a read-all-the-way-through-in-one-sitting book, but kind fun to to pick up and read a couple of chapters now and then.

[Manoela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d say 2 1/2 stars…
I have lived in the US for almost 20 years and I am an avid reader, but English is not my first language. I have to admit that I probably didn’t know about 70% of the expressions in this book to begin with. It did sound like a lot of old fashioned words and expressions. With that said, I enjoyed learning some of them and reading about the origin of the other 30% I was familiar with.

[Rex Libris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Your standard collection of random etymologies.

[Katy Mcki · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5

[Cait · Rating 5 out of 5]

My mom got this for me for my b’day 😛 (if anyone is wondering where I get my weird fun facts from)

[Gayle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun book to read and learn about where words come from that we sometimes use.

[Sheila Myers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the entries are interesting; however, there are many entries that left me asking "When did we ever say that?" A lot of the phrases weren't even in use when the book was published in 1985.

[Patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

The word etymologies were interesting but many of the sayings were ones I’d never heard. I questioned the veracity of a few of the “why we say its”.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a really fun read, but I knock it to two stars, because the quality is so shabby. In addition to the superfluous (and highly annoying) apostrophes everywhere, lots of the content appeared to be smattered drivel. No sources were cited (rather suspect) and some of the claims were really reaching. I was surprised at how many really common idiomatic expressions were missing and figured they just used random nouns as fillers where they ran out of content. Then we get to some of the "translations" (I use the term loosely) from the Latin, Spanish, French, German, et al. I am no linguist, but I know enough to know that "save usted" should be "sabe Ud." I would have thought it a typo except it seemed that the point of putting in the "v" was to claim that's where we get "savvy" (think pirate speak). While the origin may very well be true, I was irked at the carelessness of either nobody taking time to check the foreign languages or the altering of foreign phrases in an attempt to strengthen a case. Finally, there was an awful lot of defining one idiomatic expression by substituting another or including another form of the word/phrase defined. The most interesting part of this read was how many "common phrases" I had never heard. I had no notion of what they might mean. Frequently this remained the case even after reading the definition. As I said, the definition skills were sadly lacking. It was an interesting read, but to use one of the idioms actually cited in the book, take the claims of origin with a grain of salt!

[Veronica Perdomo · Rating 1 out of 5]

A student actually gave me this book about four years ago, and I unearthed it again recently.

SO it turns out this book inspired a new shelf (which I never thought I would have a need for): I Can't. Normally, when I start a book, I finish it. It may be take hours or years or the better part of a decade, but I'll finish it. I think I do this mostly out of sheer stubbornness, partly out of a little masochistic pleasure (may I remind you I have a Hurts So Good shelf?), and partly out of my training as an English scholar. If I'm going to intelligently comment on a book, I have to read it first. ALL of it. I refuse to make any arguments without having all the evidence - in favor and against.

I simply can't enjoy this book without knowing which of these explanations are legit and which are urban fiction, I have no bibliography to check - for all I know, this guy could be making it all up. I started with such enthusiasm because this is my favorite kind of stuff (I <3 Etymology), but I don't want to take up valuable brain space with falsehoods.

What I can do at a later date is find other publications with actual bibliographies to verify these. In the meantime, into Purgatory it goes.

[Mayda · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book that gives the origin of many expressions we use every day. Be advised, however, that other sources give conflicting stories about these same expressions. This book seems to imply that it can be used as a reference book, but that is hardly the case. For example, it gives an imaginative analogy for the term bull pen, but other sources list several other possibilities that don’t include the one in this book. Read Why Do We Say It? as entertainment, not as gospel truth.

[Bernie4444 · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection

The book “Why Do We Say It” is really a collection of Words, Expressions, and Clichés in alphabetical order. However, they have no in-depth or other references.

There are a few pop quizzes to see if you are reading the book; other than that, we have no proof that what is being presented is accurate.

From being in the military I can confirm the meaning of “Lock, Stock, and Barrel.”

At work, I liked to pepper my reports with these expressions as it confounded the techs that were hired in Sofia (capital of Bulgaria) who just thought they knew English

[Aalia Rehman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to try something new and read a type of book that I have never really read. I had to leave this book, because it was very boring and not good at all. The book was based on why we say the things we say in today's world, for example like any type of slang etc. This book was hard to keep track of and ovwerall just uncomfortable to read.The good thing about the book is that it holds lots of information in it. If I was to rate this I would rate it 1/5. I would not recommend this book!

[S.W. Gordon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was almost like reading the dictionary. To be fair, there were a few "aha" moments. I was surprised by how many words and phrases are derived from sailing and the theater. Perhaps it would have been better to organize the chapters by common origin: Greek, Latin, theater, sailing, business, etc. And what's with the lack of an author or editor? The publisher could have at least listed contributors or compilers who worked on the project and assigned a chief editor.

[Randall Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really fun to read. It had a lot of sayings and phrases that I always wanted to know the origins of, but it also had a lot that I had never heard of before. The only thing I didn't like was some of the vagueness involved with some of them. Overall, fun to read and learn about the origins in this book.

[Nicole Yovanoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I were British, I would be more familiar with the slang and phrases in the book and enjoy it more. Often there were no definitions for the modern phrase and became irrelevant to me. Plus often the words that were chosen derived from Latin, Greek and French and gave nothing else that was interesting. If you are very interested in language, you may like this book.

[Riann · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried to like this book but after giving it a hundred pages I'd had enough. The origin/explanation of the expressions/cliches/ etc aren't detailed enough and there is a lot of repetition. Also there are too many British expressions which are unfamiliar to me. I'd rather read a book with more detailed origins/explanation with no British expressions since they aren't used here.

[SmarterLilac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, especially for trivia mavens. It does lose some points, however, for failing to include an explanation for the source of one of my favorite colloquialisms, 'Hands down.' Why do we use that term, what is its origin?

[Vincent Lombardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

As interesting as many of the saying that were revealed in the book, I felt that many of them I haven't heard of. Also there were a few it seemed the answers were too simplistic but it was still a worth read for a number of saying were interesting.