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RR 2010/73 The Oxford Guide to Etymology Philip Durkin Oxford University Press Oxford 2009 x + 347 pp. ISBN 978 0 19 923651 0 £25/$45
Keywords Guides and handbooks, History, Language
Review DOI 10.1108/09504121011021823
This is an immaculate work in every sense, proudly flying the banners of authority and of hegemony. No less a scholar than Philip Durkin, Principal Etymologist of the indispensable Oxford English Dictionary (OED), presents us with a practical introduction to word history, investigating every aspect of where words come from and how they change in form and meaning in myriad ways. Deploying a galaxy of fascinating examples, he explores how linguistic processes can effect change, how change can result from complex cultural and social factors. His main focus is on English, a "cosmopolitan" tongue, many of whose words have pre-histories in Anglo-Saxon, Brythonic, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Hindi, French, German, Spanish, Italian - even Nahuati and Guaraní. Ethnocentrism becomes untenable!
Etymology, the systematic tracing of word histories, is, strictly, a cornerstone of academic research in historical linguistics. Traditionally, often based on myth, legend, even guesswork, folk etymology on the other hand has exercised people's imagination in every land, every culture, throughout history. In the nineteenth century my adopted village, Cerrigydrudion in central North Wales was commonly written - usually by its literate rectors -...