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Bagels, Bumf, and Buses: A Day in the Life of the English Language
Where do our everyday words come from? The bagel you eat for breakfast, the bumf you have to wade through at the office, and the bus that takes you home we use these words without thinking about their origins or how their meanings have changed over time. Simon Horobin takes the reader on a journey through a typical day, showing how the words we use to describe routine activities - getting up, going to work, eating meals - have surprisingly fascinating histories.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 14, 2022
Bagels, Bumf, & Buses is a read for the word nerd. And not for those who just love having a large vocabulary, but for those deeply interested in etymology. The book is very factual, very informative, chock-full of English word history—not, mind you, that of English language—organized into chapters according to the time of day. Considering the topic—listing as many words as possible in 205 pages—Horobin's writing was clever, easy to follow, even funny, with references to literature, films, and culture.
However, being informative is also this book's one downfall. It ends up being quite a dry read, full of so many facts that your mind will be reeling by the end (if you make it), only remembering a select few. It is, in a sense, a "seen one, seen them all" experience—the pattern of "learn-the-origins-of-thirteen-words-in-one-page" seen at the beginning of the book is the pattern the writer follows for the rest of the book, give or take a few words. In essence, Bagels, Bumf, & Buses is full of trivia. It's fun and fascinating at first but quickly turns into a bore, because it's not specialized enough to teach anything about the history of our language.
At least now I know that we have language roots in Latin, Greek, French, German, Anglo-Saxon, Spanish, and Arabic.
But that's about all the knowledge I retained.
However, being informative is also this book's one downfall. It ends up being quite a dry read, full of so many facts that your mind will be reeling by the end (if you make it), only remembering a select few. It is, in a sense, a "seen one, seen them all" experience—the pattern of "learn-the-origins-of-thirteen-words-in-one-page" seen at the beginning of the book is the pattern the writer follows for the rest of the book, give or take a few words. In essence, Bagels, Bumf, & Buses is full of trivia. It's fun and fascinating at first but quickly turns into a bore, because it's not specialized enough to teach anything about the history of our language.
At least now I know that we have language roots in Latin, Greek, French, German, Anglo-Saxon, Spanish, and Arabic.
But that's about all the knowledge I retained.
February 6, 2020
For fans of words only. This is a very dense collection of novel words, interesting etymologies, and some surprising relationships. I liked the structure of exploring words as you might (or might have) encounter them throughout the day, but the density of knowledge coming at you is pretty overwhelming. Still, I laughed and learned which is all I wanted from it.
March 8, 2020
This book was basically a bunch of etymologies related to a topic (with parentheticals containing more unrelated etymologies sprinkled about). While Horobin made a good effort trying to turn that into something resembling a story, it's still just a big list, and nothing I could reasonably read. I gave up after reading the first chapter.
October 11, 2023
Everyone on here is complaining that this is just a list of etymologies
Well, that is EXACTLY what I wanted out of this book. Absolutely fascinating stuff!
Well, that is EXACTLY what I wanted out of this book. Absolutely fascinating stuff!
October 6, 2026
i rlly liked this!! i saw some other reviews complaining abt how things were laid out in a vague story-like manner, but i didn’t mind it. it resembles my mind going abt my day wondering y certain words r the way they r. altho! i was not a big fan of the whole Sports section, i felt it dragged on a bit long. i learned dozens of etymologies for phrases and words i have never heard of and will likely never use from the Sports section. besides that, i rlly enjoyed learning all of this stuff and reading it has made me so much more curious abt the world of words around me!! i’m gonna go back and highlight my favourite etymologies! i’m sure i will become very annoying soon when i’m stopping conversations to drop a word fun fact.
August 31, 2022
This book is crammed with linguistic trivia -- a delight for a word lover like me. It is something you can dip into, but reading it one quickly reaches some mental limit of absorption, Fun for cocktail parties and trivia games? Oh, the research that went into this book! Respect is due to Mr. Horobin for his homework. And how I wish I had learned at least 'small Latin and less Greek'!
January 15, 2024
Clever and entertaining on a word-nerd level - digestible in a couple of chapters at a time setting. Best served with another novel on the side. While Simon made this text as humorous as possible, there is just so much to digest.
His preface about his family asking for the 'Short Answer' rings true, but for those inquiring minds, Simon takes you as deep as you want to go! Well done!!
His preface about his family asking for the 'Short Answer' rings true, but for those inquiring minds, Simon takes you as deep as you want to go! Well done!!
October 18, 2024
3.5
I found it quite interesting but it was a bit all over the place while organized generally, at the same time. I skipped a couple chapters concerning sports, because it's something I'm not interested in. The rest was all good
I found it quite interesting but it was a bit all over the place while organized generally, at the same time. I skipped a couple chapters concerning sports, because it's something I'm not interested in. The rest was all good
August 7, 2020
Would not recommend.
December 28, 2021
Fun, but not exactly humorous.
January 31, 2023
I love the way this is organized. It's really interesting. I like that many words were taken back two or three ethnicities.
May 8, 2023
A journey through a typical day in our lives. It did not go into much details, but provided a decent foundation for an aspiring ethymologist, sadly, a little bit dry.
March 3, 2020
This review originally appeared in Technical Communication Journal, August 2020:
If you’ve ever done historical or linguistic research, you’ve come across the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). This ponderous tome is filled with histories of English words, so you can learn how a common word used today arose from old French and first made its appearance in English in the 1680s. Now, if you’ve ever wished, “If only the OED were organized categorically instead of alphabetically," then your wish has been granted in the form of Bagels, Bumf, and Busses: A Day in the Life of the English Language.
In Bagels, Bumf, and Busses, Simon Horobin recreates a typical day’s journey, from awakening, to work, including eating and drinking and sports, and then retiring for the evening. Each section describes what you might come across or do during that themed time, and then explains the word’s origin. Frequently, that entails not only explaining the word’s history, but then explaining the history of the words used in the explanation, along with related words. Consequently, it takes a good deal of reading to learn all the terms for getting dressed for work, eating breakfast, and departing on your commute (which first entered US English in the 1960s and is a shortening of commutation ticket, from Latin com “altogether” and mutare “to change”, and was a season travel ticket in which the daily charge was commuted into a single payment). In this style, each aspect of your everyday life is explained.
While each piece of word trivia (from trivium, meaning three ways—grammar, rhetoric, and logic) may be interesting, attempting to digest the book by reading it cover to cover may prove tedious. A combination of the content and extremely small typeface is a reading challenge. Fortunately, an index is included so you can easily research your desired word and learn its history, such as the titular bumf (the daily paperwork you go through each morning which at one time would have become bum fodder, or toilet paper). Using a real life example, if when you see a colleague wearing a hat known as a trilby, you gain joy in the knowledge that it was named for the title character in a novel by George du Maurier, then Bagels, Bumf, and Busses is for you. Amateur etymologists will rejoice and enjoy this book; entomologists not as much.
If you’ve ever done historical or linguistic research, you’ve come across the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). This ponderous tome is filled with histories of English words, so you can learn how a common word used today arose from old French and first made its appearance in English in the 1680s. Now, if you’ve ever wished, “If only the OED were organized categorically instead of alphabetically," then your wish has been granted in the form of Bagels, Bumf, and Busses: A Day in the Life of the English Language.
In Bagels, Bumf, and Busses, Simon Horobin recreates a typical day’s journey, from awakening, to work, including eating and drinking and sports, and then retiring for the evening. Each section describes what you might come across or do during that themed time, and then explains the word’s origin. Frequently, that entails not only explaining the word’s history, but then explaining the history of the words used in the explanation, along with related words. Consequently, it takes a good deal of reading to learn all the terms for getting dressed for work, eating breakfast, and departing on your commute (which first entered US English in the 1960s and is a shortening of commutation ticket, from Latin com “altogether” and mutare “to change”, and was a season travel ticket in which the daily charge was commuted into a single payment). In this style, each aspect of your everyday life is explained.
While each piece of word trivia (from trivium, meaning three ways—grammar, rhetoric, and logic) may be interesting, attempting to digest the book by reading it cover to cover may prove tedious. A combination of the content and extremely small typeface is a reading challenge. Fortunately, an index is included so you can easily research your desired word and learn its history, such as the titular bumf (the daily paperwork you go through each morning which at one time would have become bum fodder, or toilet paper). Using a real life example, if when you see a colleague wearing a hat known as a trilby, you gain joy in the knowledge that it was named for the title character in a novel by George du Maurier, then Bagels, Bumf, and Busses is for you. Amateur etymologists will rejoice and enjoy this book; entomologists not as much.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews