Note: This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.
There are many theories on where words and phrases come from. Few are
entirely correct. For instance, there’s a certain four-letter word
that’s said to stand for Fornication Under Consent of King. Or is it
Fornication Under Command of King? Or, maybe it’s For Unlawful Carnal
Knowledge. (No, wait… that last one’s a Van Halen album.) Whatever
your acronym of choice is, you’re wrong. The word goes way back to a
Germanic root.
Word Myths deals with all sorts of urban legends
and stories concerning words, terms and phrases. The whole nine yards
is said to have to do with the amount of cloth necessary to make a
kimono or a kilt or some other garment. It may also refer to the length
that machine-gun bullets come it, meaning that to go the whole nine
yards is to expend all the rounds. There’s no proof that any of these
are true.
The book goes deals with so many different myths that
it doesn’t really spend much time on any given term. At most, you may
get a page or two and the pages aren’t really that big. It doesn’t seem
to be meant as an in-depth study of anything. Instead, it’s more for a
casual reader that’s interested in word origins. (If you want
something with more detail, there are other books and movies you might
want to look into. The aforementioned curse word has its own
documentary, as does the N word.)
The introduction was a little
boring and repetitive. It took me several false starts to get into the
book for that reason. Once I got past that, it wasn’t so bad, mostly
because of the short sections. That and the small size of the book make
for an easy read. I could see where it would get boring, though.
I
apologize for the short review, but there really isn’t much to review.
As it’s nonfiction, there’s no real plot to discus. The subject matter
is pretty basic. It’s not like I can give you a rundown of characters
or a brief plot description. If I were to go into even a small amount
of detail on each myth covered, there would be no point in reading the
book. The best I can do is give you a general idea of what the book is
like.
This is one of those books I’d recommend getting from the
library rather than buying for yourself. If you’re going to buy it, get
it as a gift for someone else. Yes, it could be used for reference,
but there’s not enough detail on each myth that I think it would be
worth it. I think the overall theme of the book and the message I took
from it is to bee a little more skeptical when someone tells you a story
or forwards a story to you. You never know how much of it is true.
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