If you love language, you must check out these book picks before your next read! We contacted language authority Erin McKean to ask her for her summer book suggestions. The editor of The New Oxford American Dictionary and the fantastic Dictionary Evangelist website, she graciously sent us this -- amazing -- reply:
I love recommending books about language to people -- even to people who haven't asked for any language book recommendations, and who have, in fact, asked me for something completely different, such as the time, or directions.
A great 'gateway' book for someone who's interested in a little bit of everything language-wise is ABC Et Cetera: The Life & Times of the Roman Alphabet, by Alexander & Nicholas Humez (pronounced Hyoo-MAY). So many topics are covered, ranging from Roman incantations for mending bone fractures to time-keeping in ancient courts (by means of water clocks, or clepsydra) that you're bound to find something you didn't know before. And when you're done you can grab the companion book, Alpha to Omega!
While we're talking about Latin, I also liked A Natural History of Latin, by Tore Janson. More than just a brief pass over veni, vidi, vici and the Vatican's need to express words such as helicopter in Latin, Janson's book traces the rise, spread, fall, and recent upward stirrings of "the world's most successful language." Even if your Latin doesn't go much past "Et tu, Brute?" you'll get a lot out of this book.
As a lexicographer, I often find that people expect me to know the etymology of every word of English -- and off the top of my head, no less! (Obviously, I don't.) But in explaining WHY I don't (and why no one does) I often resort to recommending Word Origins ... and How We Know Them by Anatoly Liberman. Liberman has an engaging style and has written (as far as I know) the first layperson's guide to DOING etymology, as opposed to just reading pre-packaged etymologies. It's fascinating. Another great etymology book is Word Myths, by David Wilton. This book explains exactly WHY Eskimos don't have an outlandish number of words for snow, and why POSH can't possibly stand for "Port Out, Starboard Home."
If you want even more linguistic mythbusting, you should definitely grab Far from the Madding Gerund, by Mark Liberman and Geoff Pullum, a published collection of posts from the beloved Language Log blog. Find out why you shouldn't revere Strunk and White and learn all about eggcorns (mishearings of words that make an odd kind of sense). Another heavy-on-the-linguistics book (but light reading nonetheless) is Mikael Parkvall's Limits of Language -- sort of a Guinness Records and assorted fun facts of the world's languages. If discovering that Malayalam (a language spoken in Kerala) is the longest language name that is also a palindrome fills you with joy, then this book will make you happy for hours and hours.
Although some people do read dictionaries all the way through (for pleasure, not for pay), I hesitate to recommend standard dictionaries as light summer reading. But three "little" dictionaries are. One is a reprint of Burgess Unabridged, a collection of "Words You Have Always Needed" by Gelett Burgess, the man who coined the word blurb. None of his other words reached such dizzy heights of usefulness, but he invented tons of great also-rans, such as mooble "a semi-interesting person" and flooijab "a ladylike troublemaker." Another fun semi-dictionary is Words at Work, Mim Harrison's collection of professional jargon. You might know that eight-six, in restaurant-speak, means "we're out of [whatever]." But did you know that sixty-eight means "we made more"? Finally, if you're in the mood for some really out-there words, go for Grant Barrett's The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English, where you can read about circuit bending (manipulating electronic components to make music-such as the insides of talking dolls and the like) or learn what on earth a praise sandwich could be (a criticism bookmarked by two compliments, in order to lessen the sting). The best part is that all these words are "real," in the sense of being used naturally, in the wild, and Barrett includes full citations for each one. Praise sandwich, for example, was used in the Houston Chronicle.
