Useless Etymology - Jess Zafarris

    2025; 330 pages.  Full Title: Useless Etymology—Off Beat Word Origins for Curious Minds.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Etymology; Linguistics; Language; Reference.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    Quick!  What the plural of “octopus”?  Is it octopuses, octopi, or octopodes?  If that kind of question fascinates you, you’re probably a word nerd.  Don't worry, so am I.

 

    It’s all a matter of from which older language the word “octopus” is derived.  Ancient Latin?  Ancient Greece?  Early English?  Some other even older and now-forgotten language? 

 

    Jess Zafarris freely admits she is a word nerd.  She’s researched the origins of a plethora of English words and has compiled them into this book, Useless Etymology.

 

    Hmm.  I wonder how much a “plethora” is and from what old language it came from.  Happily, the answer is in this book.  So is her opinion as to which “plural of octopus” is the most correct.  It might surprise you.

 

What’s To Like...

    Useless Etymology is divided into 22 chapters, plus a Prologue and an Epilogue.  My favorites were:

Chapter 09: Hit the Books: The origins of Literary and Rhetorical terms.

Chapter 11: Animalogical: Critters Hiding in Other Words.

Chapter 19: Word Gaffes: When Words Trip Us Up.

Chapter 22: Extralongitudinal Linguistifabulatons.

 

    I liked the writing style.  The author assumes the reader is a word enthusiast, but doesn’t have a PhD in Linguistics.  The text is by necessity scholarly, yet it is also easy for us recreational wordsmiths to understand.

 

    The chapters are separated into three parts.  Part One, The Oddities of English Etymology, introduces the reader to the technical aspects of Etymology.  Part Two, Twist and Turns, presents chapters dealing with specific etymological wordlists, such as Colors, Food, Astronomy,  Seasons/Months, etc.  Part Three, Whimsy and Wonder, is a delightful collection of offbeat words, silly vocabulary, slang, and incredibly lengthy words.

 

    I was happy to see one of my favorite dictionary terms, “Dord” get mentioned.  Ditto for Interrobangs, Aardwolves, and Grawlix, and a word of recent origin, Vellichor.  I agree with the author, the obsolete term “Slangwhanger” needs to be restored to everyday language.  And I appreciated inclusion of a quote from one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 143 ratings and 39 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.17/5 based on 303 ratings and 173 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Just like other collocated verb phrases we looked at, none of these is set in stone.  But they’ve become so commonplace that they’re difficult to avoid.  Try coming up with different versions of a few and see how they sound to you.  “Explode into tears” is less common and might evoke a different mental image than “burst into tears.”  And “awfully ill-prepared” isn’t found as frequently as “woefully ill-prepared” despite meaning  more or less the same thing.  (pg. 57)

 

    Scuttlebutt, a nautical-inspired term for gossip, rumors, and interpersonal news shared among coworkers, dates to the early 1800s and is quite literally the sailor’s equivalent of “watercooler talk.”  A “scuttlebutt” was a cask of fresh drinking water kept aboard a ship, around which sailors loitered and chattered much as they might around the watercooler in an office break room.  (pg. 261)

 

Kindle Details…

    Useless Etymology sells for $9.99 at Amazon at present.  Jess Zafarris has two other etymology-themed e-books available: Words from Hell and Once Upon a Word; both of which are in the $8–$9 range, plus another two tomes that are in the works but which you can already pre-order.

 

 

“I would there was a blister on this plaguy tongue of mine for making such a hollo-ballo.”  (pg. 7) (*)

    I only noticed four instances of profanity in Useless Etymology, and one of those was there because the etymology of “shit” was being addressed.

 

    Some of the early, more technical chapters have lots of footnotes.  For the most part, they reference the literary source being quoted in the text (which, after all, is the main purpose of footnotes), so if that doesn't interest you, they can be ignored.  In later chapters, some of the footnotes gave added insight to the text, so when you’re about halfway through the book, you might want to start reading them.

 

    I can’t think of anything else to quibble about.  For me, Useless Technology was a great read, on a subject I immensely love learning more about.  Word Nerds of the world unite!  We have nothing to lose but our linguistic ignorance!

 

    9½ Stars.  One last thing.  The tagline above marked with an asterisk (*) is from a book by Tobias Smollett, titled “The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves”, published in 1762, and cited here for its etymological forerunner of hullaballoo.  I’m amazed at how “ancient” that sentence sounds.  I think I might go find that novel and read it.