Six Words You Never Knew Had Something to Do with Pigs and Other Fascinating Facts About the Language from Canada's Word Lady

Janet Collins is a freelance writer in Sechelt, British Columbia.

Just as Lynne Truss, author of the runaway bestseller Eats, Shoots and
Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, turned the focus of
water cooler chatter from last night’s hockey game to the perplexing
problem of proper punctuation, “Canada’s Word Lady,” Katherine
Barber, has us talking about the origins of the English language.

Starting with a brief, lighthearted history of English etymology
(including contributions from the likes of Bloody Vikings and Great
Danes, Stormin’ Normans, Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Johnson, and other
wordy types that bored the heck out of even the most enthused students
of the language), Barber goes on to explain the origins of more than 500
of the most common words in the English language.

Using the charming style that has entertained her CBC listeners over
the years, Barber offers up some very surprising facts in this book. For
example, she informs readers that “school” stems from the Greek word
for “leisure.” The fact that “travel” comes from a Latin word
that means “an instrument of torture” is likely not lost on anyone
currently filing a passport application. And just as J.M. Barrie (author
of Peter Pan) came up with the name Wendy, another literary genius—Dr.
Seuss—coined the word “nerd.”

Five words have something to do with horses: wallop, canter, random,
curtail, and bidet. The six words that have to do with pigs? Well,
let’s not give away all of the fun facts. If only high-school English
classes were as much fun.