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Horsefeathers and Other Curious Words
The serious purpose of this book is, then, to supplement the dictionary, to fill gaps where filling seems to be warranted and to supply explanations for many of the curious words the significance of which is not evident from the parts that compose them. But as I do not think that a reference work need be a dry-as-dust compilation; it has been my aim to provide a little fillip of entertainment
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1958
About the author
Charles Earle Funk
48 books3 followersCharles Earle Funk (1881–1957) was an American lexicographer.[1][2][3] He was a member of the Funk family who owned the publisher Funk & Wagnalls; Dr. Isaac Funk was his uncle.[4]
Funk wrote several etymological dictionaries, including Thereby Hangs a Tale: Stories of Curious Word Origins, A Hog On Ice & Other Curious Expressions, Heavens To Betsy & Other Curious Expressions, Horsefeathers and Other Curious Words, and 2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings & Expressions: From White Elephants to Song & Dance.
Funk wrote several etymological dictionaries, including Thereby Hangs a Tale: Stories of Curious Word Origins, A Hog On Ice & Other Curious Expressions, Heavens To Betsy & Other Curious Expressions, Horsefeathers and Other Curious Words, and 2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings & Expressions: From White Elephants to Song & Dance.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 20, 2021
The Urban Dictionary for boomers. Found it in a thrift store. Good for bathroom reading.
December 4, 2022
I thought this book was very interesting. There are a few things that I think might improve it a little but, though. For instance, the words are just kind of listed and defined as if the author jotted them down as he thought of them. There is no sense of order. I think at the very least having them alphabetical (they are already alphabetized in the index, so why not make that work do double duty?) would help. Even better would be to categorize them in some way (i.e. foods, animals, transportation, etc.) and then list alphabetically within the categories. Just a little organization would have convinced me to add another star to the rating. The other thing that bothered me a little (just a little) was that a few of the words seemed to be defined by the word itself. If I didn't know what it meant, telling me that it means that word doesn't help. Anyway, this was a fun book to keep in the bathroom and read a few definitions here and there as necessary.
May 18, 2017
I really, really wanted to really like this--after all, it's by the Charles Funk of the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia and his son, who carried on his father's legacy in finishing this. But I just couldn't really climb into it, and I mean beyond the fact that you're not supposed to read a book like this as though it's a novel, which I keep doing with reference books.
Part of it was the organization: I have no idea still how they decided to put the words in the order they did, but it's not chronological, it's not alphabetical, it's not by influence, it's no discernible pattern. I'm not the kind of person who can get behind 224 pages of just jumbles of interesting words, index or no (and there is an index, which is kind of nice)--there has to be intentionality to something like this for me.
Part of it was the datedness. Because so many of these words have spelling and pronunciation and meaning changes over the course of their etymology, this didn't weather well as much more than a curiosity. It was, after all, written in the 1950s, so a lot of the words are things I'd never heard of because they've since phased out (which is interesting in and of itself and I'm not complaining about that) or have totally changed their meaning in the decades since (like when you have Prince Albert listed and are still talking about it as a name for a specific kind of coat). And there are the 1950s mentality words in the explanations that take sexist jabs and talk about Negroes, but I can't fault the book for speaking from its time.
In all, this is a neat project and an interesting leisure read for before bed or somesuch. I think I'll gift it rather than hang on to it, although I'll list a few of the entries I found most interesting below for future reference:
grotesque: Paintings discovered on the walls of the Baths of Titus, excavated by archaeologists in the sixteenth century, gave us our word "antic" through the Italian antica, "antique." But, though the learned world thus attributed the paintings to the ancients, the general public was more impressed by the finding of them in the excavated chambers, or grotte, of ancient buildings, and, therefore, called them grotesca. Any kind of comic distortion or unnatural exaggeration at all akin to the figures in these old Roman murals then became grotesca, a term that, through French influence, evolved into English grotesque. (16)
John Barleycorn: This legendary gentleman, sometimes styled Sir John Barleycorn, was apparently conceived about the year 1620. That we gather from the use of the name as a title to "A pleasant new ballad...of the bloody murther of Sir John Barleycorn," of that period. And the gentleman, if so he was, was even then a personification of malt liquor, or the grain of which it was made. But it is not likely that his name would still be known were it not for Robert Burns. "Inspiring bold John Barleycorn," he wrote in "Tam o' Shanter," "What dangers thou canst make us scorn!" See also his poem "John Barleycorn." (64)
scaramouch: Like our stock companies today, traveling groups of actors in the Middle Ages had a limited repertory, which then was often but one play. Such a group of strolling players, from Italy, visited London in the latter part of the seventeenth century, bringing with them a pantomime in which one of the chief characters was Scaramuccia, a representation of a Spanish don who was a coward and a braggart. His part in the play involved a series of skirmishes with the hero, and his name is, appropriately, the Italian word for "skirmish." This character made a great hit with the London audiences, and they took his name, later modified by the French spelling, Scaramouche, into the language, applying it to a person having the characteristics of the boastful coward who was the original Scaramuccia. (181)
Part of it was the organization: I have no idea still how they decided to put the words in the order they did, but it's not chronological, it's not alphabetical, it's not by influence, it's no discernible pattern. I'm not the kind of person who can get behind 224 pages of just jumbles of interesting words, index or no (and there is an index, which is kind of nice)--there has to be intentionality to something like this for me.
Part of it was the datedness. Because so many of these words have spelling and pronunciation and meaning changes over the course of their etymology, this didn't weather well as much more than a curiosity. It was, after all, written in the 1950s, so a lot of the words are things I'd never heard of because they've since phased out (which is interesting in and of itself and I'm not complaining about that) or have totally changed their meaning in the decades since (like when you have Prince Albert listed and are still talking about it as a name for a specific kind of coat). And there are the 1950s mentality words in the explanations that take sexist jabs and talk about Negroes, but I can't fault the book for speaking from its time.
In all, this is a neat project and an interesting leisure read for before bed or somesuch. I think I'll gift it rather than hang on to it, although I'll list a few of the entries I found most interesting below for future reference:
grotesque: Paintings discovered on the walls of the Baths of Titus, excavated by archaeologists in the sixteenth century, gave us our word "antic" through the Italian antica, "antique." But, though the learned world thus attributed the paintings to the ancients, the general public was more impressed by the finding of them in the excavated chambers, or grotte, of ancient buildings, and, therefore, called them grotesca. Any kind of comic distortion or unnatural exaggeration at all akin to the figures in these old Roman murals then became grotesca, a term that, through French influence, evolved into English grotesque. (16)
John Barleycorn: This legendary gentleman, sometimes styled Sir John Barleycorn, was apparently conceived about the year 1620. That we gather from the use of the name as a title to "A pleasant new ballad...of the bloody murther of Sir John Barleycorn," of that period. And the gentleman, if so he was, was even then a personification of malt liquor, or the grain of which it was made. But it is not likely that his name would still be known were it not for Robert Burns. "Inspiring bold John Barleycorn," he wrote in "Tam o' Shanter," "What dangers thou canst make us scorn!" See also his poem "John Barleycorn." (64)
scaramouch: Like our stock companies today, traveling groups of actors in the Middle Ages had a limited repertory, which then was often but one play. Such a group of strolling players, from Italy, visited London in the latter part of the seventeenth century, bringing with them a pantomime in which one of the chief characters was Scaramuccia, a representation of a Spanish don who was a coward and a braggart. His part in the play involved a series of skirmishes with the hero, and his name is, appropriately, the Italian word for "skirmish." This character made a great hit with the London audiences, and they took his name, later modified by the French spelling, Scaramouche, into the language, applying it to a person having the characteristics of the boastful coward who was the original Scaramuccia. (181)
August 16, 2019
Humorous reading and good for odd research.
January 30, 2020
It's fine, but honestly I'd rather just pay for access to the oed. That's not dated-sexist/racist
June 13, 2022
An interesting book about the origins and evolutions of words in the English language.
November 23, 2023
super fun to think about all the ways words come into the language and what a long and circuitous way some of them have come
February 8, 2009
K. Horsefeathers: & Other Curious Words.
Funk, Charles Earle: 0060513373
This book was a family project - begun by Charles Earle Funk, Litt D., finished by his son CEF Jr., with (pretty dreadful) illustrations by Tom Funk. Insert obvious joke (it's funkadelic!) here. I guess these are the Funk & Wagnalls people. The book's main focus is explaining the origin of the words listed as primary entries. Authorial whim seems to have been the main selection criterion. Words are listed in apparently random order; there is an alphabetized index, but cross-referencing is inadequate (for instance, "stirrup cup", the very first entry, fails to link to its synonym "doch-an-doris").
It was first published in 1958 and shows its age.
My scores:
Coverage: 1 out of 5
Scholarship: 4.5 out of 5
User-friendliness: 2 out of 5
Charm: 0 out of 5
Why didn't I like this book? Primarily because the vast majority of the 600 or so words chosen for inclusion struck me as being remarkably uninteresting.
Ferris wheel. Cheesecake. Beachcomber. Loophole. Sherry. Thoroughfare. Unkempt. Bandy-legged. Cockroach. Dragonfly. Cobweb. Tintinnabulation. Fifty-fifty. Daredevil. Sang-froid. Dandelion. Vinegar. Amateur. Fahrenheit. Airedale. Streetwalker.
These are words with blindingly obvious etymologies, and even Charles Earle Funke cannot make them interesting.
Many of the chosen words are distinctly dated:
Crosspatch. Flapdoodle. Runabout. Chucklehead. Chopfallen. Xerography. Banana oil. Talbotype. Green Soap. Gagman. Hackamore. Sitz bath. Poppycock. Cousin-german. Velocipede.
"Xerography", you ask? "It is made up of the combining forms of xeros, "dry", and graphein, "to write", hence has the literal meaning of "dry writing". It is used exclusively in connection with a photographic process in which the latent image is formed as an electrostatic charge and is developed through the adhesion of a dry powder to the charged .... Oops! Sorry. Just nodded off there for a while.
Stopgap: One of the many meanings of to stop is "to dam, to plug up", as in "to stop a leak" or "to stop a drain". A stopgap, even in its modern sense of some temporary measure to fill a need, is, both literally and figuratively, something to "stop" a "gap".
In other startling news, under "streetwalker", we read that "it seems probable that the term was coined as being descriptive of the practice of prostitutes pursuing their trade openly on the streets".
Gosh, ya think so, Charlie?
Ten pages of this kind of shlock from Doctor Obvious will have you clawing your eyes out, looking for an exit.
One Star.
Funk, Charles Earle: 0060513373
This book was a family project - begun by Charles Earle Funk, Litt D., finished by his son CEF Jr., with (pretty dreadful) illustrations by Tom Funk. Insert obvious joke (it's funkadelic!) here. I guess these are the Funk & Wagnalls people. The book's main focus is explaining the origin of the words listed as primary entries. Authorial whim seems to have been the main selection criterion. Words are listed in apparently random order; there is an alphabetized index, but cross-referencing is inadequate (for instance, "stirrup cup", the very first entry, fails to link to its synonym "doch-an-doris").
It was first published in 1958 and shows its age.
My scores:
Coverage: 1 out of 5
Scholarship: 4.5 out of 5
User-friendliness: 2 out of 5
Charm: 0 out of 5
Why didn't I like this book? Primarily because the vast majority of the 600 or so words chosen for inclusion struck me as being remarkably uninteresting.
Ferris wheel. Cheesecake. Beachcomber. Loophole. Sherry. Thoroughfare. Unkempt. Bandy-legged. Cockroach. Dragonfly. Cobweb. Tintinnabulation. Fifty-fifty. Daredevil. Sang-froid. Dandelion. Vinegar. Amateur. Fahrenheit. Airedale. Streetwalker.
These are words with blindingly obvious etymologies, and even Charles Earle Funke cannot make them interesting.
Many of the chosen words are distinctly dated:
Crosspatch. Flapdoodle. Runabout. Chucklehead. Chopfallen. Xerography. Banana oil. Talbotype. Green Soap. Gagman. Hackamore. Sitz bath. Poppycock. Cousin-german. Velocipede.
"Xerography", you ask? "It is made up of the combining forms of xeros, "dry", and graphein, "to write", hence has the literal meaning of "dry writing". It is used exclusively in connection with a photographic process in which the latent image is formed as an electrostatic charge and is developed through the adhesion of a dry powder to the charged .... Oops! Sorry. Just nodded off there for a while.
Stopgap: One of the many meanings of to stop is "to dam, to plug up", as in "to stop a leak" or "to stop a drain". A stopgap, even in its modern sense of some temporary measure to fill a need, is, both literally and figuratively, something to "stop" a "gap".
In other startling news, under "streetwalker", we read that "it seems probable that the term was coined as being descriptive of the practice of prostitutes pursuing their trade openly on the streets".
Gosh, ya think so, Charlie?
Ten pages of this kind of shlock from Doctor Obvious will have you clawing your eyes out, looking for an exit.
One Star.
May 12, 2007
This book is a collection, a dictionary if you will, of bizzare phrases and their origination. The funny thing is, the book is really old and most of the phrases haven't even been spoken in the last 40 years. To make things even more comical, the author doesn't seem to know where many of these phrases cam from so he simply "guesses" and tells you when he is, which is often.
January 31, 2008
The information is really good, it just isn't written as engagingly as Funk's other works. Still, this is THE source to go to get your questions answered about our common English phrases and words. Funk is an expert on etymology and phrase origin.
November 14, 2012
Finding origins of unusual expressions.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews