Kick the Bucket and Swing the Cat: The Complete Balderdash & Piffle Collection of English Words, and Their Curious Origins

Front Cover
Random House, Jan 31, 2011 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 544 pages

Kick the Bucket and Swing the Cat takes a humorous tour through the fascinating, sometimes tragic, and often surprising history of the English language and its etymology.

Author, humorist and word-sleuth Alex Games uncovers the trends, innovations and scandals that have shaped the meanings of our most popular words and expressions, from Chaucer to Internet jargon and Ancient Greek to American slang. Who was the original Jack the Lad, Gordon Bennett or Bloody Mary? Where do dodgy geezers and hooligans come from? What are skeldering, dithering and sabre-rattling?

This amusing but rigorously researched account of English words and their origins combines the findings of the major BBC TV series and the nationwide Wordhunt, and is an entertaining treasure trove for English-language lovers everywhere.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Foreword
9
One Our Mongrel Tongue
41
Two Dr Johnsons Big Idea
67
Three From 0800 Number to Zyxt
89
Four Desert Island Texts
113
Five Local Lingo
135
Six Global Lingo
157
Seven Thats Entertainment
177
Thirteen One Sandwich Short
285
Fourteen Fashionistas
305
Fifteen Who Were They?
329
Sixteen Mans Best Friend
351
Seventeen Dodgy Dealings
371
Eighteen Putdowns and Insults
395
Nineteen Spend a Penny
415
Twenty Xrated
439

Eight The Appliance of Science
199
Nine Mind Your Language
219
Ten To Er is Human
245
Twelve Origin Unknown
269
Wordhunt Results
461
Further reading
505
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Kick the Bucket and Swing the Cat: The Complete Balderdash & Piffle ...
Alex Games
No preview available - 2008

Common terms and phrases

adjective American Anglo-Saxon antedating Balderdash & Piffle Balderdash wordhunters became Bible Bloody Mary Britain British called Chapter Chaucer chavs citation coined comes defined definition described dialect dodgy earliest early edition editor English language English word entry Eric Partridge euphemism evidence example expression fact fashion French fuck Geoffrey Chaucer German Greek hoodie hooligan Jack the Lad John Johnson kinky known later Latin word lexicographers linguistic London look Lord magazine meaning meant Middle English modern mucky pup Murray nineteenth century noun novel OED's Old English original Oxford English Dictionary penis perhaps person phrase pillock play plonker popular porn pretty quotations quoted recorded reference seems sense sexual Shakespeare someone sound spiv story street T.E. Lawrence talk term of abuse thing Thomas twentieth century usage verb Victorian vocabulary William Wordhunt writer wrote

About the author (2011)

Alex Games wrote the original Balderdash & Piffle which became an instant bestseller on publication in January 2006. He has written for most of the slightly posher newspapers, and in a brief stint as a gadget columnist he was responsible for reviewing some of the most inexpensive items ever to appear in the Financial Times. As well as writing comedy for BBC Radio 1 and 4, Alex has written biographies of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and Alan Bennett.

Bibliographic information

TitleKick the Bucket and Swing the Cat: The Complete Balderdash & Piffle Collection of English Words, and Their Curious Origins
AuthorAlex Games
PublisherRandom House, 2011
ISBN1446415112, 9781446415115
Length544 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / General
  
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