the Etymologicon

This book by Mark Forsyth is, as its subtitle concisely proclaims, something of a circular stroll through the hidden connections of the English language. It's been my go-to toilet book for the past six months or so, and honestly it's far more interesting than you'd maybe expect and certainly far more entertaining than I did. Everything from farts to frankfurts to Milton to nutshells to China to organs to testicles to cynicism to the fascinating story of the somewhat arguably insane self-made eunuch murderer who did an astonishing bulk of the legwork on proofing definitions for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary... having finished this book I don't think I'll ever look at my own language the same way again, to say nothing of the truly bizarre island culture that spawned it. A must-have for Werd Nerds, and if you're anything like me in terms of reading habits - it works brilliantly as a toilet book as the chunks are pretty much exactly poo sized. You know what I mean.