• About
  • Listening
    • Baroque
    • Bluegrass and Country
    • Classical Fusion
    • Classical Period
    • Early Music
    • Film soundtracks
    • Folk Music
    • Jazz
    • Modern Classical
    • Modern Pop Fusion
    • Musicals
    • Romantic Classical
    • Spoken word
    • World Music
  • Reading
    • Fiction
      • Children’s and Young Adult Fiction
      • Classic writers and their works
      • Contemporary Fiction
      • Crime and Detective Fiction
      • Fictionalised Biography
      • Historical Fiction
      • Horror
      • Lighter-hearted reads
      • Literary Fiction
      • Plays and Poetry
      • Romance
      • SF
      • Short stories
      • Western
      • Whimsy and Fantastical
    • Non-Fiction
      • Arts
      • Biography and Autobiography
      • Ethics, reflection, a meditative space
      • Food and Drink
      • Geography and Travel
      • Health and wellbeing
      • History and Social History
      • Philosophy of Mind
      • Science and nature
      • Society; Politics; Economics
  • Reading the 20th Century
  • Watching
    • Documentary
    • Film
    • Staged Production
    • TV
  • Shouting From The Soapbox
    • Arts Soapbox
    • Chitchat
    • Philosophical Soapbox
    • Science and Health Soapbox
  • Interviews / Q + A
  • Indexes
    • Index of Bookieness – Fiction
    • Index of Bookieness – Non-Fiction
    • Index of authors
    • Index of titles
    • 20th Century Index
    • Sound Index
      • Composers Index
      • Performers Index
    • Filmed Index

Lady Fancifull

~ adventures in a mainly literary obsession

Lady Fancifull

Tag Archives: Etymology

Mark Forsyth – The Etymologicon

26 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by Lady Fancifull in Arts, Non-Fiction, Reading

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Book Review, English Language, Etymology, Mark Forsyth, The Etymologicon

Stanley Kubrick’s Debt To John Milton

the_etymologiconIt’s a very good job I have short-term recall of facts. Otherwise, no friend would be able to have a conversation with me without me pouncing all over their words and unravelling and re-connecting them. As it is, I will just be restricted to pouncing on the word and saying – you know that word GENERAL you just used well read that fabulous book The Etymologicon and see how it links to people making oaths hand-on-testicles.

I would love to invite this author to dinner, (though I might not get, or want, a word in edgeways!) such is the absorbed, inventive, eclectic, playful mind, weaving together such a fascinating circularity of linguistic musing. Derivations can be an interesting, but often rather dryly explained topic. Not here. Forsyth is erudite, witty, conversational, and enormously excited and passionate about his subject, sweeping the reader enthusiastically upwards and onwards in a great circle of linguistic connections. This is a smile-on-your-face-laugh-out-loud-gosh-that-is-FASCINATING-I-want-to-know-more sort of book.

Saint Panteleimon

Saint Panteleimon

I was delighted to find that my undergarments for my nether regions have compassionate origins (The much beleaguered patron saint of Venice, Saint Pantaleon, (means All-Compassionate); Venetians often then referred to as Pantaloni ; Commedia del Arte gives the character Pantalone wearing the typical style of breeches, Pantaloons, worn by those Venetians; Pants!

As for Stanley Kubrick? Well Milton was the inventor, like Shakespeare, of a huge number of words and phrases which are now common coinage in our language. One of these Miltonic words was the word ‘Space’ applied cosmologically.

So, without Milton, Kubrick’s seminal (!) film might have had to be called 2001-A Great Mark ForsythVoid Odyssey. Which could have been a disaster, as the subliminal linguistic message might have been interpreted as 2001 – one to A-Void. Particularly if someone was familiar with connections to matters lavatorial and colonic irrigation in the non-Miltonic ways of describing the cosmos (you’ll have to work it out)

Brilliant book!

The Etymologicon Amazon UK
The Etymologicon Amazon USA

Advertisement

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Page Indexes

  • About
    • Index of Bookieness – Fiction
    • Index of Bookieness – Non-Fiction
    • Index of authors
    • Index of titles
    • 20th Century Index
  • Sound Index
    • Composers Index
    • Performers Index
  • Filmed Index

Genres

Archives

February 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728  
« Mar    

Posts Getting Perused

  • William Butler Yeats - Vacillation
    William Butler Yeats - Vacillation
  • Philip Glass - Glassworks
    Philip Glass - Glassworks
  • Alan Sillitoe - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
    Alan Sillitoe - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
  • Mick Herron - Real Tigers
    Mick Herron - Real Tigers
  • Virginia Woolf - The Voyage Out
    Virginia Woolf - The Voyage Out
  • Sarah Moss - Bodies of Light
    Sarah Moss - Bodies of Light
  • Colette - Claudine at School
    Colette - Claudine at School
  • That Sugar Film
    That Sugar Film

Recent Posts

  • Bart Van Es – The Cut Out Girl
  • Joan Baez – Vol 1
  • J.S.Bach – Goldberg Variations – Zhu Xiao-Mei
  • Zhu Xiao-Mei – The Secret Piano
  • Jane Harper – The Lost Man

NetGalley Badges

Fancifull Stats

  • 162,927 hits
Follow Lady Fancifull on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow on Bloglovin

Tags

1930s setting Adult Faerie Tale Andrew Greig Arvo Pärt Autobiography baroque Beryl Bainbridge Biography Biography as Fiction Bits and Bobs Bits and Pieces Book Review Books about Books Cats Children's Book Review Classical music Classical music review Classic Crime Fiction Colm Toibin Cookery Book Crime Fiction David Mitchell Dystopia Espionage Ethics Fantasy Fiction Feminism Film review First World War Folk Music Food Industry France Gay and Lesbian Literature Ghost story Golden-Age Crime Fiction Graham Greene Health and wellbeing Historical Fiction History Humour Humour and Wit Ireland Irish writer Irvin D. Yalom Janice Galloway Japan Literary Fiction Literary pastiche Lynn Shepherd Marcus Sedgwick Meditation Mick Herron Minimalism Music review Myths and Legends Neil Gaiman Ngaio Marsh Novels about America Other Stuff Patrick Flanery Patrick Hamilton Perfumery Philip Glass Philosophy Police Procedural Post-Apocalypse Psychiatry Psychological Thriller Psychology Psychotherapy Publication Day Reading Rebecca Mascull Reflection Robert Harris Rose Tremain Russian Revolution sacred music Sadie Jones Sci-Fi Science and nature Scottish writer Second World War SF Shakespeare Short stories Simon Mawer Soapbox Spy thriller Susan Hill Tana French The Cold War The Natural World TV Drama Victorian set fiction Whimsy and Fantasy Fiction William Boyd World music review Writing Young Adult Fiction

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Lady Fancifull
    • Join 771 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Lady Fancifull
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.

    %d bloggers like this: