Customer Reviews

Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you have any interest at all in English etymology, you MUST HAVE THIS BOOK. Beg, borrow, bid, phone every used bookstore you can find -- do anything to get a copy of this book. This book is so good that when I came across a copy of it and skimmed it, all I could do was look back with new regret at the years I'd spent using other works I could now recognize as inferior.

This is simply the best book on English etymology I've ever seen -- beats the earlier etymological dictionaries by Skeats and Weekley hands down, and of course is superior to any normal dictionary's treatment of etymologies (OED, Merriam-Webster, etc.).

Over thirty years ago I begun developing the habit of consulting etymological dictionaries whenever I wanted to deepen my understanding of words. I equipped myself with several etymological dictionaries in each of the three languages I use: spanish, french and english (which share many words). Over the years and independently of the language that triggered a given search, I found myself increasingly going FIRST to Partridge's ORIGINS (acquired in 1977) and often feeling no need of consulting another dictionary.
Quite a number of years comparing etymological dictionaries! Hence I agree, it should at least be reprinted or, hopefully, edited anew after improvement by a team of experts knowledgeable of more recent research in the field.

If you love the English language and are truly very curious about the meanings of its words as reflected in the evolution of its origins and meanings, this is a "must have" book. I have used the 1966 issue of it for years now, and rate it more useful, although a companion book, to the seminal work of Walter Skeat. No library can realistically be said to be complete,nor can any lover of the English language, without both of these works.

Please bring it back and put one under the pillow of every lover and liker of the language of Shakespeare and Milton. (Or, check your local used bookstore when you're feeling lucky.) My favorite book on English etymology.

For the price, this book should have sewn signatures. In a few years, it is going to start losing pages. I worked in libraries for years and this is not just "opinion". It is a shabby way to present an otherwise wonderful reference work.

I found this difficult to read, at first, because of the abbreviations used (literally 100's of different ones throughout the book) in each definition, but caught onto them over time. You get used to flipping to check the key when an uncommon abbreviation comes up. Once I became accustomed to that....it really opened up a wealth of knowledge.

This is a great resource, and highly recommended for anyone deeply interested in Etymology. It contrasts nicely with the online Etymology dictionaries, since the information offered in the book is a bit more in depth. The book also does a better job of cross-referencing related words than any website could.

It's an older book (the author died in 1979), but the information in here never gets old. The new print is pricey, but you can pick up used copies for a fair price. It's a great addition to any reference shelf.

Highly recommended, if you are an Etymology geek.

First of all, the text itself is great, and I have little doubt that the paper edition is unproblamtic. My comments here apply only to the Kindle edition. The people who edited this fine text for the Kindle must not be Kindle users themselves. I recently needed the etymology of the word 'much.' However, the only way to get there is to do a search for the word 'much,' and of course, this produces 30 pages of hits, each with six results, or 180 all together. For each, the Kindle displays limited context, so you can rule out some of them, but others looked like the possible entry. After a few false hits, I finally arrived at the actual entry (from the 15th page of results), only for it to refer me to the entry for 'master.' This dictionary is full of such cross-references, which is fine except that they are not hyper-linked, so you will have to do another search or try to find the correct hit amongst the current search results. Thus we have a dictionary with no proper way to look up words. It's an extremely small minority of dictionary-users who read the tome cover-to-cover, and it's unfortunate that the Kindle edition was prepared in such an effortless manner that only such people are inconvenienced.

I implore the publisher to take this into consideration. Kindle editions can be revised and re-downloaded at no cost to the user, and I request such a revision. Kindle dictionaries actually have a look-up function which was not used for this product.

Weigh this complaint against the fact that this is a US$60 purchase and not the $9.99 that most non-academic Kindle books are priced at. I don't mind paying more for scholarly work (and fortunately my purchase came out of grant money, which is the only reason I'm not returning it), but given that the author has been dead for over 30 years, this is an awful lot of money to be going to editors who didn't do enough work on the Kindle edition to justify their job titles.

If the dictionary is revised in such a way that looking up words is a task easily accomplished, I will happily remove this review and replace it with the glowing review that the text itself deserves. I certainly don't think that the ability to look up words in a dictionary directly is an unreasonable request nor do I think implementing such a method would be difficult for the publisher as it involves a function the Kindle already provides but which the publisher didn't use.

Love,love it!Very nice etymological dictionary.very detailed and accurate...make me understand words all the way to their roots.I don't use words in same way as before

Simply the best, most intelligent, most superbly organized work about the roots of English. Just flipping through the pages at random is an education by itself. Beats Skeat by an English mile.

Webster's cites for 'filibuster': ...freebooter, a member of a deliberative body who obstructs action by use of dilatory tactics such as speaking merely to consume time...". Eric Partridge's 'Origins' digs deeper to find that 'freebooter' derives from 'booty' meaning to take as plunder and thence through a Spanish re-spelling to 'flibustero' thereby to the English 'filibuster'. A roundabout but fascinating look at how our politicians plunder our valuable time. Now aren't you glad your time has been so plundered?

Eric Partridge's book 'Origins' will take you on such a journey through our language and across time again and again. Enjoy it.