- Hardcover: 96 pages
- Publisher: Century; Hardback edition (12 Nov 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0712655735
- ISBN-13: 978-0712655736
- Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 13.2 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 945,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
A directory of eccentric inventors and originators throughout history. The essential companion for anyone who has ever wondered about the origins of many of the more puzzling words in English: why do people wink, who first came up with "walkman", are cartels a recent Thatcherite phenomenon?
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Have you ever wondered how quirky words such as 'fiasco' and 'boudoir' came to be incorporated into our language? Where did 'Hammock' come from? Did it really originate from a Plymouth man of this name ? Or did it have a Caribbean origin'hamaca' as dictionary lexicographers tell us? Cochrane - if he is to be believed - has tracked down people who by their actions or inventions have contributed their names to our vocabulary. The whole book has an air of Frank Muir invention about it but true or not, I have had more fun this slim volume, and Cochrane's expositions than practically any other book on my shelves. I hope that it will soon be reprinted with additional material and if so - buy it!
Format:Hardcover
It's a very funny book. I was about 2/3 of the way through before I got it, but even then it is supremely amusing. Cochrane's derivations will always be the correct ones for me, regardless of what the dictionary says.
Format:Hardcover
My wife has owned a copy of this book for a many years, and since getting married we have proudly kept in the dowstairs loo as a source of 'light relief'. I myself have only really started paying it attention for a short while.
It is clear that the only 'wink' in its covers is a hooded one. The author has marvelously made up names of persons of little renown and passed them off as the originators of such well known words as doldrums, coffin, and of course, gusset.
A great gift to buy for show-offs of the intellectual persuasion. Send them a copy and see how long it takes them to get the joke. It's took my wife 10 years - what a hoot!
It is clear that the only 'wink' in its covers is a hooded one. The author has marvelously made up names of persons of little renown and passed them off as the originators of such well known words as doldrums, coffin, and of course, gusset.
A great gift to buy for show-offs of the intellectual persuasion. Send them a copy and see how long it takes them to get the joke. It's took my wife 10 years - what a hoot!
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