Can I Have a Word with You?

Based largely upon his “Speaking of Language” column from the Montreal Gazette, Richler discusses the origins and histories of 70 words, ranging from abortionist to zero (and even including the word word). This is Richler’s fifth book about language. Its arrangement is alphabetical and the words, at first glance, seem to be deceptively simple. For example, what Canadian knows that in England an anorak is not a winter jacket but a person, usually a man, who is obsessively interested in an obscure subject or activity? Or that word would be a difficult word to define?

Richler writes an entertaining and often thought-provoking book on language. Some of the entries are based on letters from his readers asking questions about modern usages of certain words (such as hopefully and gay). Richler often gently reminds his reader that, although there are rules, languages must change and evolve over time to reflect modern mores. An excellent example of this is his entry on actress. Prompted by an angry reader’s letter about the Gazette’s use of the word actor in reference to women, Richler explains that the English language has been eliminating gender distinctions in the language for quite some time, and that, in fact, when women were first allowed to act on stage in the 1700s they were referred to as actors, not actresses.

There are two points of concern with Richler’s book. First, because the entries are based on his Gazette columns, they have a tendency to ramble and not focus on the main entry. If a reader is looking for an in-depth discussion of a particular word, then perhaps this book is not the ideal text. It must be noted, as well, that Richler was let go as a columnist from the Gazette after it was discovered that he had used sources without attribution in his “Speaking of Language” column, upon which many of the entries in this book are based. (See “Writer used materials with attributing sources” in the May 20, 2006 edition of the Montreal Gazette.)