There's A Word For It Book

H. There's a Word for It: A Grandiloquent Guide to Life.
Elster, Charles Harrington: 1416510869

Right in the opening sentence, Charles Harrington Elster lets us know that we are in entertaining company: "... what you're about to read (if you dare) is a work of the utmost intellectual incontinence written by a man who is plumb crazy, stark raving mad, and out of his grandiloquent gourd about words".

Let me get this out of the way at the start. I am a fan of CHE. The man's got style. He's got a sense of humor. His enthusiasm is infectious. And he understands perfectly the kinds of words readers get a kick out of. This reader, anyway.

Coverage: 5 out of 5
Scholarship: 4 out of 5
User-friendliness: 4 out of 5
Charm: 5 out of 5

This is not a dictionary. Elster eschews the standard alphabetical listing, choosing instead to group entries by theme. He considers twelve main categories:

1. Health and Disease.
2. Food and Drink.
3. Love, Sex and Perversion.
4. Argument and Insults.
5. Words to describe People.
6. Phobias.
7. Religion, Belief and Divination.
8. Politics and Business.
9. Knowledge and Communication.
10. Sound and Fury: Human/Animal Noise and Behavior.
11. Uncommon Words for Everyday Things.
12. Epilogue: Some Words that make Life Living.

Chapters have further useful subdivisions. For example, the reader may choose an insult from such categories as: slobs and fops, gluttons, slackers, idiots, thieves and spongers, crummy kids, animal insults, dwelling places and eating habits, and miscellaneous unclassifiable nastiness.

The delight you derive from this book will be directly proportional to your degree of word-geekishness. Most of the words in this book are not strictly necessary . (300 different phobias, 100 ways of predicting the future, all those very specific words for collectors of various stripes?) But their existence surely makes the world a little bit more interesting.

QUIZ:

1. A collector of postcards is a ?
2. Fear of crossing bridges is ?
3. Someone who sprays saliva when speaking is ?
4. The study of miracles is known as ?
5. The summer version of hibernation is?
6. The fur-covered pouch attached to a kilt is a ?
7. The groove in the middle of your upper lip is ?
8. Food that you spit out, e.g. seeds or pips, is ?
9. Sublimation of sexual desire through cooking is ?
10. What word describes a pubic wig?
11. A word meaning 'like, or related to, an ostrich?
12. A person who habitually drops in uninvited at mealtimes is known as a ?

4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.