What's What: A Visual Glossary of the Physical World

What's What: A Visual Glossary of the Physical World is not a book one ordinarily sits down and reads, it serves more as an invaluable visual and literary resource reference. More than just a catalog of names of everyday items, What's What can help just about anyone sound like an expert whether they're writing or speaking about a given item. It would seem that the world is full of nearly inexhaustible items to be dissected and named from the most simplistic to the highly technical. Considering that the most recent edition of this book dates to 1994, it is fairly concise. Granted, you won't find "every" item under the sun, but authors by Reginald Bragonier Jr. and David Fisher should be commended for compiling all that they have. Remember, even Webster didn't get all the words in the lexicon on his first or second try. A valuable resource and a fun book to browse through once in a while.

This is an invaluable book, especially for writers, designers and hardware store-goers who need to know what a thing is actually/properly called (lest they resort to constructions like "the wizbo," "the whatchamacallit," and "the whosis".) Look up a word in the index, then turn to a photo or diagram that illustrates it, with all of its component parts identified by name. Everything from a 747's cockpit to 20 kinds of windows (including those on a slot-machine) are among the thousands of listings. That the book doesn't get five stars is owing only to the fact that the index uses a type which is too small for old eyes.

Unfortunately, this book is now out of print, but if you can find a second-hand copy somewhere, grab it. "What's What" covers pretty much the same ground as DK Publishing's "Ultimate Visual Dictionary". If you own both (and I do) you'll find that they compliment each other quite nicely. "What's What" covers areas that the other book doesn't (courtrooms and prison yards, for example, are presented with labels, for instance -- very helpful if you're writing a courtroom or prison story and you want to know what the names of everything are.) Likewise, "Ultimate Visual" covers areas that "What's What" doesn't.In short, both books are essential to writers, researchers, or anyone who just wants to know what the name of something is.