Just a link today to this rather interesting article on where the words in a typical bit of prose come from. I once did the same thing with the song Yesterday (which is almost all Germanic). You can read my old one here.
Haha! . . . Highly suitable for Xmas! - Margaret Atwood
My favourite book of this and possibly any other Christmas is Mark Forsyth's A Short History of Drunkenness - The Spectator
Sparkling, erudite and laugh out loud funny. Mark Forsyth is the kind of guide that drunks, teetotallers and light drinkers dream of to explain the ins and outs of alcohol use and abuse since the beginning of time. One of my books of the year. Immensely enjoyable. Professor Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads
A Short History of Drunkenness is this year's Châteauneuf-du-Pape of Christmas books, no less. Bloody entertaining. - Emlyn Rees
Sometimes you see a book title that simply gladdens the heart. Everyone I showed this book to either smiled broadly or laughed out loud . . . This is a book of some brilliance - Daily Mail
With a great eye for a story and a counterintuitive argument, Mark Forsyth has enormous fun breezing through 10,000 years of alcoholic history in a little more than 250 pages. - The Guardian
Well researched and recounted with excellent humour, Forsyth's alcohol-ridden tale is sure to reduce anyone to a stupor of amazement. - Daily Express
This entertaining study of drunkenness makes for a racy sprint through human history - history being, as Mark Forsyth wittily puts it "the result of farmers working too hard". - The Sunday Times
This charming book proved so engrossing that while reading it I accidentally drank two bottles of wine without realising. - Rob Temple, author of Very British Problems
Taste the Elements of Eloquence
The Horologicon is out in America
The Horologicon is a book of the strangest and most beautiful words in the English language arranged by the hour of the day when you will really need them. Words for breakfast, for commuting, for working, for dining, for drinking and for getting lost on the way home. It runs from uhtceare (sadness before dawn) to curtain lecture (a telling off given by your spouse in bed). It's out all over the world and you can buy it from these lovely people:
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