Word Fugitives: In Pursuit of Wanted Words [Hardcover]

Barbara Wallraff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 2006

Despite the many thousands of dictionary words at our disposal, our language can be dismayingly inadequate. How many times have you searched for a word that means just what you want it to but failed to find anything suitable anywhere? Most of us, it turns out, lead lives rife with experiences, people, and things that have no names.

At least, they lacked names until now. Word Fugitives comes to the rescue, supplying hundreds of inspired words coined or redefined to meet everyday needs. For instance, wouldn't it be handy to have a word for the momentary confusion people experience when they hear a cell phone ringing and wonder whether it's theirs? (How about fauxcellarm, phonundrum, or pandephonium?)

Or what about a word for offspring who are adults? (Try unchildren or offsprung.) Or a word for the irrational fear when you're throwing a party that no one will show up? (That might be guestlessness, empty-fest syndrome, or fete-alism.)

This mind- and vocabulary-expanding book grew out -- way out -- of Barbara Wallraff's popular column in The Atlantic Monthly. Brimming with irresistible diversions and pop quizzes; illuminated by contributions and commentary from authors, linguists, and leading language authorities; and enlivened by pleas for help from people whose words have yet to be found, Word Fugitives will captivate and inspire anyone who ever struggles to describe the world that he or she, or they, or thon (thon? see page 141) lives in.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“...achieved with as much wit and tact as earnestness and wisdom (Booklist )

...an up-to-date guide to usage that can be both pleasurably browsed and quickly consulted... (Kirkus Reviews )

“Barbara Wallraff proves herself to be a wise, witty, and marvelously entertaining guide through the jungle of English usage.” (Francine Prose, author of A Changed Man and Blue Angel )

“There is a discovery and a smile on every page.” (James Fallows, National Magazine Award-winning correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly )

Her approach to language is a beguiling mix of charm and research. (USA Today )

“No fugitive word, however crafty or devious, can escape the clutches of that peerless lexical sleuth Barbara Wallraff.” (Patricia T. O'Conner, author of Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English )

“This book should carry a warning sign...it contains several hundred seriously twisted puns.” (Charles C. Mann, author of 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus )

“Read it alone. It might be embarassing to chortle so much in public.” (Merl Reagle, Sunday Crossword Puzzle Creator, The Los Angeles Times )

Wallraff picks her way through language thickets with a sure step and a generous attitude. (Boston Globe )

“A delightful book on an entertaining and fascinating topic: how we coin words.” (Steven Pinker, Professor, Harvard University, and author of The Language Instinct, Words and Rules, and How the Mind Works. )

About the Author

Barbara Wallraff is a contributing editor at The Atlantic Monthly, where she has worked since 1983. Doing justice to the English language has long been a professional specialty of hers. She has written for the New York Times Magazine's “On Language” column, she is a former commissioner of the Word Police, and National Public Radio's Morning Edition once asked her to copyedit the U.S. Constitution. Her name appears in a Trivial Pursuit question -- but not in the answer. Wallraff is the author of the national best seller Word Court and Your Own Words. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Harper (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060832738
• ISBN-13: 978-0060832735
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,224,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Machete, March 25, 2006

By 

Samuel Jay Keyser "Samuel Jay Keyser" (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Word Fugitives: In Pursuit of Wanted Words (Hardcover)

Every language in the world has the capability of producing an infinite number of words. Just think of constructions like "anti-ballistic missile" or "anti-anti ballistic missile" or "anti-anti-anti ballistic missile" and so on. After awhile, making them up becomes a bore. Not so in "Word Fugitives." Here the trick is to come up with words to name situations as yet unnamed. What do you call the feeling, for example, just after you thought you had stepped off the curb and suddenly realized you were falling? Bad news? "Word Fugitives" does much better than that. It is a funhouse of a book, finding new words for old situations in clever, amusing and quite unexpected ways. This book is first and foremost fun to read. Then it will provoke you. And finally, it will enlighten you. For those of you lost in the thicket of lexicography, this book is a machete.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars word fugitives, March 13, 2006

By 

wordophile (Redlands, CA usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Word Fugitives: In Pursuit of Wanted Words (Hardcover)

I thought that English was a rich language, with special terms for everything, until I read Word Fugitives, having heard about it on NPR. There are so many missing terms - holes in the language, as Barbara Wallraff calls them - and so many ways to plug them. This book is full of the solutions, all wonderful and funny. One favorite: getting in one line at the supermarket only to find another moving faster - what is it? Misalinement. How can I get my favorite new word to stick? Umm...that's another matter, and Word Fugitives has some tips.
All in all, really amusing.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wide world of words gets wilder !, October 12, 2006

By 

Omar Ishmail (Washington DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Word Fugitives: In Pursuit of Wanted Words (Hardcover)

This fantastic mind expanding book has grown out of Ms.Barbara Wallraff's column in The Atlantic Monthly. Something that I have followed for years. It overflows with diversions, (e.g. "English hasn't had a new pronoun for about a thousand years, and there is no sign it will acquire one any time soon") quizzes, contributions and comments from people who are authorities, linguists, authors and plus the fact that it is made sprightly cheerful by supplications from people who are groping for words that remain to be found. Quoted as "English at a Loss for Words",even when Global Language Monitor, an organization estimates there are more than 900,000 words in the English language, and more are being added every day.

To explain about this book, even when we know that feeling it is often that we are not able to find the exact word that defines it - often that word does not exist, (Or it is a sniglet - "word that should be in the dictionary, but isn't) - despite the exuberant and extravagant richness of our language. This endeavor by Ms. Wallraff proves, and I am beginning to be convinced that perhaps even language such as English is dismayingly inadequate. This book comes to rescue providing hundreds of words minted, coined, redefined or delimitated. Just like when you're looking for a word that can mean either "a phantom" or "an ideal" -- eidolon would come handy.

- People who blabber loudly and annoyingly on cell-phones in public? Yakasses.

- Disposable plastic bags caught in trees? Fouliage.

- And when look up a word in a dictionary, and get distracted by something totally off the subject, on the other side of the page? This is called double-entry-bookpeeping. Or is it lexploring?

- What would you say of the times your car or washing machine or TV breaks down, and you pay a repairman to take a look at it, but when he or she - turns it on , IT WORKS ! you can call it deus hex machine. Or how about? Hocus operandi?

Another example to serve the purpose - like what would you call the experience of having recently heard about something for the first time and then starting to notice it everywhere? How are toujours vu, newbiquitous or coincidensity.

What would you call the feeling when you revisit the same refrigerator you had left disappointed few minutes ago, hoping to find - this time, the perfect snack -- which you overlooked before. Well that's leftoveractive imagination. Other choices such as Cold comfort, refrigerator magnetism, smorgasboredom, and freonnui have also been suggested. Somebody has even called it stirvation another one terms it as procrastifrigeration.

Would it be handy to use a word for that momentary confusion everyone experiences when they hear a cell phone ringing and wonder if it is theirs? There - fauxcellarm, phonundrum, pandephonium , phonundrum , ringchronicity , ringmarole or ringxiety are the suggested choices.
And what would like to call your offspring who are adults? (Try unchildren or offsprung.) Or the word for the irrational fear when you're throwing a party that no one will show up? (That might be guestlessness, empty fest syndrome, or fete alism.)

Again what is a word to describe the process of going through the dirty-clothes hamper to find something clean enough to wear? which one would you like to take skivvy-dipping snifferentiate, brainwashing or laundry composting. Or even the laundry alternative is known as dry gleaning.

This book captivates and inspires. I cannot say any further, lest you call it Fullabullacolumnia - some description that goes on and on and on