San Antonio College Library

This book offers case histories of 100 Indo-European roots and shows how they appear in modern English. It provides a look at the ways in which language prehistory affects everyday modern vocabulary. Each entry consists of a definition and discussion of the root, a concise history of its descent to present-day English and a chart that presents the story visually.

"Why aren't bald eagles bald? What's the link between gnomes and being enormous? What connects a Christmas carol with the Russian for street? The answers can all be found in the history of the words themselves, and In Word Routes Alexander Tulloch gives us the fascinating stories behind more than five hundred of them." "He traces the routes of English words through time and across the globe. He reveals the surprising, amusing twists, turns and encounters...

Shows how language evolves by relating the histories of words associated with seven different topics.

Describes the history of the origins of over 500 words and phrases used in the English language.

On title page: A bobtailed, generally chronological listing of proper names that have become proper and uncommonly common; together with a smattering of proper names commonly used ... and certain other diversions.

"The legendary Oxford English Dictionary today contains over 600,000 words and a staggering 2,500,000 quotations to illuminate the meaning and history of those words. A glorious, bursting treasure-house, the OED serves as a guardian of the literary jewels of the past, a testament to the richness of the English language today and a guarantor of future understanding of the language. In this book, Charlotte Brewer begins her account of the OED at the...