Category: Review

• Book review: The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities by Paul Anthony Jones

  He’s done it again. On the heels of his delightful Accidental Dictionary, Paul Anthony Jones—the word-grubbing mastermind behind the wildly popular @HaggardHawks online–is out with another collection of weird and wonderful words. This one’s called A Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities: A Yearbook of Forgotten Words (Elliott & Thompson, 2017). The publisher kindly sent me a…

  John Kelly

  October 28, 2017

  Review

• Review: Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town Red by Andrew Thompson

  Some recent US political events have thrust two interesting idioms in the headlines: waiting for the other shoe to drop and pass the buck. Thinking of a writing post on the expressions, I started doing some research online. Then, much to my pleasure, I remembered I had an entire book dedicated to them: Andrew Thompson’s…

  John Kelly

  July 30, 2017

  Review

• Review: Sports Talk by Colin McNairn

  You don’t really have a choice over whether or not you like sports if you speak English. All bets are off, bad break, curveball, down to the wire, get the ball rolling, grandstanding, level playing field, take the bait, track record—expressions taken from sports are everywhere and everyday in English, so much so that we…

  John Kelly

  July 8, 2017

  Review

• Review: Barnhart’s Never-finished Political Dictionary of the 21st Century

  As my regular readers know well, I tend to focus on the origins of everyday words that are timely, seasonal, or buzzing in the news. My selections, more often than not, come from politics—and, these days, it seems they’re almost exclusively from or about Trump. Not that I’m alone. Take Barnhart’s Never-finished Political Dictionary of…

  John Kelly

  June 6, 2017

  Review

• Review: The Word Detective by John Simpson

  I’ve often been asked, “You’re the kind of person who likes to read the dictionary, aren’t you?” Well, I’m not just someone who enjoys reading the dictionary. I’m also someone who takes great pleasure in reading books about the dictionary. In this case, it’s John Simpson’s The Word Detective: Searching for the Meaning of It…

  John Kelly

  April 12, 2017

  Review