Words of a Feather: A Humorous Puzzlement of Etymological Pairs

by Murray Suid, Jeremy Eaton (Illustrator)

Dazzle your friends and family with your knowledge of word origins! What's the connection between maneuver and manure ? Between glamour and grammar ? Anger and angina ? At first glance, these words seem to have nothing in common, but in fact they are Words of a Feather , connected by their origins. This cleverly entertaining book explores the shared histories of 150 word pairs (called "dual etymologies") to give language lovers of all ages a fun and powerful vocabulary-building education that's sure to impress. Adversary & Both share the same root for "turn." An adversary is someone you don't want to turn away from, lest he shoot you in the back. An advertisement makes you turn toward it, so it can sell you something. Affluence & It's all about "flow." The affluent have a steady flow of cash; the influential have power flow. And if you're Bill Gates, you've got it all. Flatulence & Both share the Latin flare , which means "to blow," although with inflate , the "wind" is incoming, a crucial difference.

Genres: Nonfiction

176 pages, Hardcover

First published September 11, 2006

Reviews

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy learning about word origins. This book is a fun way to read about the subject, as the author pairs seemingly unrelated words and traces each back to a common origin. It's an amusing journey - although in some cases, it's a bit of a stretch, even a guess. The author is pretty over-the-top and goofy in his humor, which I generally liked. However, I found that I really couldn't read about more than a few word pairs at a time in order to digest the information. I also really enjoyed the final section, where the author talks about different types of word origins - I would have liked seeing more of this type of commentary woven through the book. Overall, I'm glad I stumbled across this little book, and I hope I remember to refer back to it in the future.

[Saskia Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fun and educational book for anyone interested in words, language and etymology. With entertaining entries on the relationship between words such as "flatulence" and "inflation" it will give you some great dinner party discussion to dazzle and amuse companions with. I had a lot of fun with this book.

[Charlotte Gunther · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun to read and leisure moments. Cleverly written.