Albert Jack

It's a Wonderful Word (eBook, ePUB)

The Real Origins of Our Favourite Words

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Did you know that an assassin is a hashish-eater and a yokel a country woodpecker?

That Dr Mesmer mesmerised patients back to health or that Samuel Pepys enjoyed a good game of handicap?

While we're at it, what have spondulics to do with spines or lawyers with avocados?

In It's a Wonderful Word, bestselling author Albert Jack collects over 500 of the strangest, funniest-sounding and most delightful words in the English language, and traces them back to their often puzzling origins. While brushing up on your gibberish or gobbledygook, discover why bastards should resent travelling salesmen, why sheets should remain on tenterhooks and why you should never set down a tumbler before finishing your drink.

From blotto to bamboozle and from claptrap to quango, Albert Jack's addictive anecdotes bring the world's most colourful language to life and are guaranteed to surprise and entertain.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Random House
• Seitenzahl: 288
• Erscheinungstermin: 3. November 2011
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781446456095
• Artikelnr.: 37892415

Autorenporträt

Albert Jack is a writer and historian. His first book Red Herrings and White Elephants explored the origins of well-known idioms and phrases and became an international best-seller in 2004. It was serialized in the Sunday Times and remained on their best-seller list for sixteen straight months.

He followed this up with a series of other popular titles including Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep, Pop Goes the Weasel, What Caesar did for my Salad & They Laughed at Galileo.

Fascinated by discovering the truth behind the world's great stories, Albert has become an expert at explaining the unexplained, enriching millions of dinner table conversations and ending bar room quarrels the world over.

He is now a veteran of hundreds of live television shows and thousands of radio programs worldwide. Albert lives somewhere between Guildford in England and Bangkok in Thailand.

OTHER BOOKS BY ALBERT JACK

Red Herrings and White Elephants Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep Phantom Hitchhikers Loch Ness Monsters and Other World Mysteries Pop Goes the Weasel The Old Dog and Duck What Caesar Did for my Salad Black Sheep and Lame Ducks It's a Wonderful Word Money for Old Rope Part 1 Money for Old Rope Part 2 The Jam: Sounds From the Street Want to be a Writer? New World Order: The Bilderberg Conspiracy and the Last Man in London Rose Versus Thistle They Laughed at Galileo The Greatest Generation - Diary of a 1st & 6th Airborne Paratrooper 9/11 Conspiracy Debt Freedom Program The Slow Death of Europe Blue Moons and Black Markets