Цитаты из книги The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

A clearer image of the nature of Sade’s work comes from the fact that in the 1930s a historian by the name of Geoffrey Gorer, who was researching the marquis, went to the British Museum to read some of de Sade’s works that were stored there. However, he was told by the British Museum that it was a rule that people were…

There’s an old pop song by The Smiths called ‘How Soon is Now?’ The writers of the song must have been even lazier than I am, because the answer is available in any etymological dictionary. Soon was the Anglo-Saxon word for now. It’s just that after a thousand years of people saying ‘I’ll do that soon’, soon has ended up…

After the war, Minor was posted to New York, but he spent so much of his time in the company of prostitutes that the army got embarrassed and transferred him to Florida. It’s a rather impressive feat to visit so many prostitutes that you become a scandal in New York. It’s also an impressive feat to visit so many…

Legally speaking, you can terminate somebody’s employment in one of two ways: you can terminate without prejudice, meaning that you are open to the idea of re-employing the poor chap; or you can terminate with prejudice, meaning that you will never hire the scoundrel again. The latter is for employees who have done…

And, because he was a Puritan, he invented words for all the fun things of which he disapproved. Without dear old Milton we would have no debauchery, no depravity, no extravagance, in fact nothing enjoyable at all.