Publisher's Synopsis
This collection of verbal oddities examines not just words that are unmistakably and intrinsically curious words - words like "hobbledehoy", "sophomore" and "shibboleth" - but also the strangeness that lurks behind everyday words such as "bed", "book", "expert", "love' and "week-end".;Special features include "word articles" which examine the unexpected origins of familiar words like "window" and "apron"; the history of curious compounds such as "mushroom" and "toadstool"; homophones, homonyms, antonyms, nonce-words, eponyms, synonyms, taboo words, buzz words, hybrid words, loan words, portmanteau words, spoonerisms and back formations; word teasers to test your knowledge of words, their meanings and origins; regular "link word" features, revealing unexpected verbal connections between apparently unrelated words like "bread" and "companion"; a unique Shakespearean "word alphabet"; "word quotations" which offer numerous practical examples of "curious words" in use, from Shakespeare to Ruth Rendell; a comprehensove word index.
