In a Word: 750 Words and Their Fascinating Stories and Origins

This book is a pleasure to pick up and browse: informative, well-written, and filled with clever drawings. It's useful for students and teachers alike, but -- and I don't mean to nitpick -- it's by no means definitive. Readers should be aware of alternative attributions before they announce these etymologies to their friends or pupils. For instance, the author, Rosalie Baker, claims that the name for Africa originated from the Latin word "aprica," meaning "sunny," as if this were a settled matter. But it's only one of many possible origins; numerous alternative theories point to North African tribes and languages for the word's derivation. The same thing happens to "ketchup," which Baker claims is Malaysian in origin. But it may well have come from Chinese, Arabic, or other languages. The author traces the etymology of "arctic" to the Greek words for the constellation Ursa Major. However, because Polaris, the North Star, is in Ursa Minor, this constellation may also be the source of the word. This caveat aside, there are a lot of fun and interesting tidbits of geographic, cultural, and historical knowledge to be gleaned from the book.

This book is fun to read. It has lots of interesting historical info. Good for teachers.