Customer Reviews

Why You Say It: The Fascinating Stories Behind Over 600 Everyday Words and Phrases

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

If you want to know the origins of 'Once in a blue moon' or 'Here mud in your eye' or countless other phases and words, this is the book for you. The book is a very entertaining resource full of the mundane and arcane roots of common phrases. This is truly the stuff in which trivia games are made.

The author seems like a nice enough fellow, someone you would enjoy as a dinner speaker. This book is evidently culled from his notecards. Some of his examples are informed, but certainly from secondary or tertiary sources. Others are jaw-dropping speculations based on understandable but wrong-headed idiomatic misreadings. HYMAN KAPLAN enthusiasts will be transfixed, but junior-high researchers and TOEFL-types should steer clear.

This book is full of explanations and origins to over 600 words and phrases used in modern English. Unlike many books that examine the origins of words, this book is easy to read and is highly entertaining. Anyone who enjoys trivia will love this and even for those who don't, it's an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Language is a tricky thing. Its development is fluid and often lost in the mists of time. Why do we say what we say? Words have origins that are sometimes traced readily, but at other times defy explanation. This is often even more true of sayings and expressions. It can seem a veritable pandemonium.

By the way, where do we get the term pandemonium? If it sounds Latinate to you, you're on the right track, but in fact pandemonium is a place name, used by English poet John Milton, as the place Satan and his peers have their headquarters. So, if you use the term pandemonium today to mean a place of discontent, disquiet, or chaos, your heart is in the right place.

Where do we get the expression, the 'heart is in the right place?' I'm assuming that most people's hearts will be where they have come to be placed - in the middle of the torso, between the lungs and above the liver. The ancient Egyptian mummifiers might have known where the heart was (although they didn't quite know what the organs did), but through the ages the results of the heart beat might bring one to question its location - when it is in the right place, all is presumably well.

Author Webb Garrison has pulled together literally hundreds of words and expressions that might have colourful and interesting backgrounds. This book is a trivia treat - it is not a systematic treatise or etymological survey by any means, but rather a short, handy reference for those who like to ponder imponderables. For those who do any public speaking, this can be a valuable resource.

For anyone else, this is an interesting collection of possible word and phrase origins. I say 'possible', because while Garrison provides a nice bibliography, there are no source citations, and, language being what it is, these phrases may or may not all have the origins presented here. However, a random sampling check against the OED shows that most conform to the most commonly held ideas, at least according to that standard text.

So, follow the hype and get your ducks in a row, for you've heard it here first, though perhaps not from the horse's mouth. It is no hogwash, and I'm not pulling your leg or trying to pull a fast one. I've no axe to grind nor a chip on my shoulder compelling me to recommend this book.

The meaning and origin of common words and phrases explained in approximately three paragraphs. Set up to be the perfect book for quick reference or bathroom breaks. The premise and setup of this book are good, but the actual contents are mediocre to bad. Some phrases, especially the more obscure or regional ones, could have benefited from a more in depth explanation, or even a sentence using the term, to better illustrate how the term is used. The author also could have "connected the dots" a bit more on how the term came about to how it came about as we now know it.

Some entries (see Molotov Cocktail) were incomplete and consequently the "punchline" is never fully realized ("Molotov bread baskets" of which the Molotov Cocktail was a response both in action and name, were never even mentioned by Mr. Garrison).

The worst offenders, like Three Sheets to the Wind, are just simply wrong. Mr. Garrison claims this phrase came about because the "rolling and pitching of a poorly rigged ship" was the result of a four-masted ship with only three sails unfurled in a gale. What Mr. Garrison doesn't seem to realize is that in a large gale, likely none of a ship's sails would be out, unless you wanted the masts torn out! His claim about symmetry is also untrue. Further, the phrase existed long before four-masted ships, so the author's explanation is wrong on multiple levels.

While incomplete explanations are frustrating, they can be overlooked in light of the better written entries. A number of incorrect explanations, however, call into question all of the entries and consequently I cannot enjoy or recommend this book.

When this book came up on the BookSneeze program, I was intrigued (to say the least) and snagged a copy. What I got was more or less what I expected.

The book is pretty straightforward. Each chapter title "categorizes" the words or phrases it will discuss (with titles like "Names and Games" and "Many Were Famous, Others Were Merely Rich") followed by a list of that chapter's entries. A "See Also" list is included in each chapter for phrases that may be simlar to the chapter's offerings, as well as an index of all phrases and words at the end of the book.

As I probably should've expected, this book is pretty academic in its presentation and descriptions. While it usually does give interesting descriptions about how the words and phrases often came about, the book can become pretty dry if read straight through instead of using it as a reference. Additionally, some of the descriptions leave you wanting slightly more details, while others can be a little too detailed. Also, for a book that is describing how these sayings came to be, it occasionally sprinkles other adages into its descriptions, becoming distracting in its usage toward the end of the book.

How you enjoy this book depends on how you read it. If you're looking for a quick reference on words and phrases or a gift idea for a word geek (like myself), this book is perfect. If you're looking for trivial knowledge or a short read or two, it's also a great book. If, however, you're looking for a book on language to read cover to cover, this might not be a great fit.

Have you ever wondered how certain words or phrases came to be?
Like Whippersnapper, and Rain Cats and Dogs?

Well you should check-out Webb Garrison's book, "Why You SAY IT" It shares the stories of over 600 everyday words and phrases. It is interesting, and kind of fun to read all the origins of things. I enjoyed seeing the everyday phrases that I use often, and to find out how they actually came about it. Some were funny, some were weird, and some just didn't make any sense. If you are a word person or into origins of phrases and things of that nature. This book is for you. It is laid out in different chapters which were kind of random to me. I would have like to just see all the words alphabetically listed, and all the phrases alphabetically listed throughout the book. You are able to search the index to find certain words or phrases if you don't want to read the entire book or are looking for something specific. It overall was a fun read.

This book promised to enlighten me about the stories behind words and phrases, and I wanted to learn the backstory behind common sayings. There were different chapters for genres of phrases; then each chapter had multiple sayings followed by their origin / meaning. I found this book fun, but not easy to just read through front to back. It was more entertaining to flip through it with my husband and read occasional sayings and their meanings aloud. I thought come very common phrases were missing, but there were a lot of new things I learned!

Overall, this was a fun read and I recommend it to have laying around the house. I imagine that you could make a fun party game (similar to balderdash) with it.

I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their [...]; book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 [...]l : "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Why you Say it? by Webb Garrison

Ever wondered why we use different words in certain context? Have you even stopped for just one moment and thought about conversations you've had with people and thought to yourself, "why did I say that?" I'm amazed at all the unique phrases that we use and I've thought from time to time, "where did these phrases come from?"

The search has now ended, well at least some of it. In this book you will find a plethora of short phrases and words and a brief description which explains their origins. For example, do you know where the word "Diesel" comes from? How about the phrase "Caught Red-handed?" Many of these and more can be found in this anthology of word/phrases. Garrision has really done his research and if you're curiosity overtakes you and you're dying to know why we say what we say, you should pick up a copy.

Like many people, I love little bits of trivia, so this book was right up my ally. The author filled the book with the history/explanations of 600 words and phrases used in everyday life. If you're like me, you have no idea where some of these came from!

This is one of those great books that you can pick up, read about something and then put it down and come back for more later! I love those kinds of books when life gets super busy. I kept this in the car for ages. Then, on those days, when I got to the boys' school early, I could keep myself entertained while learning about where things came from!

If you're a "too busy to read" type of person or if you're just a word geek, this book is certainly one that you'll want to pick up.