Reviews for The Grand Panjandrum: And 1,999 Other Rare, Useful, and Delightful Words and Expressions

The average rating for The Grand Panjandrum: And 1,999 Other Rare, Useful, and Delightful Words and Expressions based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-08-16 00:00:00 Peter Tascarella Of all the books on words that we have, this one is my favorite.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-04-08 00:00:00 James Greenhow Useful for reference and fun for discovery, this book is for those of us who love language and words. The book is mostly about unusual words and phrases-- like energism, decussate, glosseme, abatjour, and black mayonnaise. Each of the 35 chapters is about the words for a broad topic (e.g. marriage, the senses, philosophy, and buildings) and the index covers all the words. Each word or phrase is given a few lines of explanation and comparison, and for some the etymology is discussed also. Therefore the book is useful for reference, but it is also good reading, at any starting point.