Book Description
An all-new collection of unusual and intriguing words, drawn from the author's beloved e-mail newsletter
In 1994, Anu Garg began A Word A Day (AWAD), a free e-mail service that delivers a new word every weekday, accompanied by a definition, etymology, sample usage, and commentary. Each week has a different theme, and at the end of the week, Garg sends out a newsletter with enthusiastic feedback from the more than half-million AWAD subscribers around the world. Now, in this encore to the national bestseller A Word A Day, Garg offers 52 new delightfully themed chapters-ranging from "Words Formed Erroneously" and "Words of Horse-related Origins" to "Words Borrowed from Yiddish" and "Red-Herring Words." In them, readers will discover a treasure trove of 260 curious and compelling new words, including agelast, bissextile, cockamamie, cumshaw, disembogue, dragoman, fartlek, manitou, mittimus, nyctalopia, quacksalver, scission, sennight, tattersall, yegg, zaftig, and zugzwang. For A Word A Day subscribers and word buffs everywhere, this book will make the perfect gift.
Anu Garg (Seattle, WA) is the founder of Wordsmith.org, a community of some 600,000 word lovers in 200 countries. The author of A Word A Day (0-471-23023-4), he writes about language-related issues for magazines and newspapers and speaks internationally.
Synopsis
A smorgasbord of surprising, obscure, and exotic words. In this delightful encore to the national bestseller "A Word A Day", Anu Garg, the founder of the wildly popular A Word A Day Web site, presents an all-new collection of unusual, intriguing words and real-life anecdotes that will thrill writers, scholars, and word buffs everywhere. "Another Word A Day" celebrates the English language in all its quirkiness, grandeur, and fun, and features new chapters ranging from 'Words Formed Erroneously' and 'Red-Herring Words' to 'Kangaroo Words,' 'Discover the Theme,' and 'What Does That Company Name Mean?' In them, you'll find a treasure trove of curious and compelling words, including agelast, dragoman, mittimus, nyctalopia, quacksalver, scission, tattersall, and zugzwang. Each entry includes a concise definition, etymology, and usage example, interspersed with illuminating quotations. Praise for a word a day 'Anu Garg's many readers await their "A Word A Day" rations hungrily. Now at last here's a feast for them and other verbivores. Eat up!' - Barbara Wallraff, Senior Editor at The Atlantic Monthly and author of Word Court.
'AWADies will be familiar with Anu Garg's refreshing approach to words: words are fun and they have fascinating histories.' - John Simpson, Chief Editor, Oxford English Dictionary.