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Member Reviews

I absolutely loved this book. Full stop.

It's goofy and sarcastic and silly and cheesy and absolutely fantastically awesome.

If that’s not emphatically clear enough, I’ll say it again: I loved this book.

Jess Zafarris takes us through a near endless amount of assorted words, taking the reader through their etymologies, brilliantly weaving in laugh out loud commentary with an Oxford English Dictionary-style explorations.

But rather than dryly sharing a word’s etymology, Zafarris peppers in snarky yet pithy analysis. At other times, Zafarris makes fun of our own curiosity into the word or takes us on a tangential ride to other quite silly etymologies.

I loved every moment of it.

Five stars!

Thank you to John Murray Press and NetGalley for the advance copy. All opinions are my own.

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This book is so fun. The sections are short and easy to read and covers basically everything you could want to know about words. As someone who always likes to look up the etymology of words (especially when learning other languages, it's so interesting to see how words that might not mean similar things now came from the same place), this was a super fun read for me.

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This had a lot of interesting etymological information! It was all explained well and concisely, so it was easy to understand without feeling like the author was droning on at any point.

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An amusing, fact-packed book! I thoroughly enjoyed learning the tidbits of information that this books contains. Yes, I may have also been randomly using it in my everyday conversations whenever I can as well!

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For someone who is not into etymology, I quite enjoyed this book. The book feels like your friend is telling you about their knowledge in etymology and it does not make it boring. I also liked the structure of the book. As the author explains words another word comes up and it just makes it more exciting. I never imagined I would like a book about etymology.

Thanks to Netgalley, John Murray Press and Jess Zafarris for this copy.

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Whether you're looking for the etymology of a specific word or just interested in etymology more widely this is a gem of a book to dip in and out of.

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An entertaining look at various aspects of etymology and how the words we use have been formed and shaped over the years. I enjoyed this look into how words can change over time as well as where they come from in the beginning. I did find some sections a little long, but overall an enjoyable read.

I received an advanced copy from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

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I really enjoyed this - what a fascinating look into words, their origins and interesting facts about how things came to be as they are. This was packed full of information

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A fun, entertaining but also intellectual look at words, word origins and the English language. Pedants will probably have a field day trying to find mistakes, but the biggest learning is language is always changing and what you think is correct may actually be not.

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This book is packed with fun information but I found its chatty style disorganized and hard to follow so I ended up not reading very much. DNF.

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This book was full of fascinating facts, which I enjoyed, but there were almost too many facts for me to take in. I found that using the book as more of a reference worked best for me. For example, I love cooking and baking, so I was drawn to the chapter on "edible words" right away, and skipped to that chapter early on. I also really enjoyed the chapter on words from space. Again, the information was fascinating and enjoyable, but when I tried to read the book in chapter order, I became overwhelmed with all the information. Overall, 4 stars for the interesting content, but 3 stars for the way it was organized and presented--so 3.5 overall.

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Thank you Netgalley for this arc
This is anything but useless.
Its not the type of book I usually read but I still had a really fun time .
5 stars
Full review on Goodreads

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Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. This was a fun and interesting read. I chuckled at a few of the more interesting words. For instance, a clatterfart is a person who talks a lot or likes to gossip. Socer came about from the British, and was used to differentiate between soccer and rugby. This would be a fun book for anyone who likes learning new words and ways to use them.

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Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced reader's copy and the opportunity to this early. Review has been posted on Waterstones and Goodreads.

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As an etymology and trivia nerd, I knew I had to read Useless Etymology by Jess Zefarris. And I must say, doing so was an excellent idea.

Packed full of fun words and a history of global languages’ influence on English, Useless Etymology takes you from the basics of etymology through word play and words that have fallen out of use (but should be resurrected). The book rather loosely takes you from beginner etymology, with introduction to terms, to more advanced concepts. The flow is natural enough that you barely notice, though the word examples in chapters seems a bit random at times.

This is a very quick read, though I recommend not trying to read it straight through. It’s more like an appetizer book, where you read some before bed, or while you’re sitting in the parking lot waiting for your kids to get out of practice. It’s easy to jump in and out of, more like an extended listicle than a standard nonfiction book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It entertained me, and will be something I go back to periodically, because I’m sure I didn’t retain everything. It should be on the gift list for every etymology nerd in your life.

Many thanks to John Murray Press and NetGalley for the eARC.

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Thank you to Net Galley and John Murray Press for a free e-ARC of 'Useless Etymology: Offbeat Word Origins for Curious Minds' by Jess Zafarris.

'When you call something a "disaster," you are literally saying that whatever misfortune has occurred was foretold by the stars. The word "disaster" (dis+aster) literally means "ill-starred."'

This was a really unique and interesting read! I knew next to nothing about etymology (or the origins of words!) and I learnt a lot throughout this book. When I first started reading, I wondered how this would fill out (a whole book on etymology?!) but it delivers and then some. I would like to join the club of 'word nerds' pls! Zafarris takes you through so many interesting histories, perspectives and stories on words and how they have developed throughout times.

'A cur is a dog, and "fysting" meant "stinking" but literally "farting" or "breaking wind". Thus, to be feisty is to be like a stinky, farty little mutt dog. According to Sir Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, which was published in 1811 and consists of heavily editorialized definitions, the meanings of the words "feist" and "dog" were conflated because high-class ladies would blame their gas on their little lap dogs.'

'Useless Etymology' varies from words that you wouldn't think are old but really are, like 'kudos' and 'legit' through to the word origins of different dog breeds (the latter was a big favourite of mine!)

'Arctic is from Ancient Greek arktos "bear" because the constellation Ursa Major, "the greater she-bear," also known as the Big Dipper, is always visible in the northern polar sky. Antarctic, therefore, literally means "opposite the bear." Serendipitously, polar bears reside at the North Pole but not the South Pole, making the Antarctic the land without bears in more ways than one.'

There were a few parts of 'Usless Etymology' that I found a bit harder to understand, but on the whole, Zafarris does a great job of presenting this topic in a really engaging, funny, and accessible way.

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If you're curious and like to share fun facts, this is the book for you. It's fun (it quotes Terry Pratchett, what did you expect ?) and full of fascinating linguistic facts... The "ye" one got me.

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Fun and stylistic prose while retaining its intellectual depth! There is a clear voice that keeps the content from reading as dry

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Ever wonder why portmanteau has so many letters? Why some words are censored and whether they always have been? Why some cultures refer to the sky as green?

Useless Etymology has the answers to these questions and so many more. The words in this book are roughly grouped by topic and then explored in their historical context to bring us to how they're used today and why.

There were certainly a few words that I would have liked more information on, but there were just as many that gave me more information than I could possibly care about, so it balanced out. Many of the definitions were humorous or insightful. I couldn't see myself reading this book straight through in one sitting, but it was fun to read a few pages a day on the bus or before bed. I particularly appreciated the emphasis on not being pedantic. The more you learn about words, the slipperier they become, and the sillier pedantry appears.

I suspect that if you're the kind of person whose mouth quirks up at the corner upon reading the title "useless etymology," you are exactly who should be reading this book. However, if you're the sort of person who has never contemplated reading a dictionary from cover to cover, I recommend using this book for reference, as you might not find it as entertaining as I did.

Thank you to John Murray Press and NetGalley for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

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This is a wonderful book for Word nerds. It’s important to realize the book is exactly as advertised. It’s essentially an encyclopedia of words so not something you want to cover a cover but something to read slowly or dip in and out of. Great fun if you love words and reading.

#UselessEtymology #NetGalley

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