A Wonderland of Words: Around the Word in 101 Essays

Good

'Farrago'. When we read or hear this word who comes to our minds.? Yes. Shashi Tharoor, the handsome and colourful MP from Thiruvananthapuram. He is the author of this enchanting book.The book traces origins and etymology of words commonly or not so commonly used in English language. It is written with lots of humour and provides interesting trivias about people and places without which the book would have made for dry reading.The book is spread across 101 small and crisply written chapters with exotic names. For example there is a chapter titled Pleonasms or Dysphemism which denotes certain way of usage of words. There is a chapter Indianism. Highly interesting.I wished this particular chapter was longer.Most of it we know but what I didn't know was it has a name.English as we know now is about 600 years old and about 2/3 rd of its words have origins in a foreign language mostly French. Many commonly used words which I assumed was English is actually French.Trivia: There is a novel of fifty thousand words without containing the letter 'e'.There is a chapter on banned words in Stanford University. Looks like wokeism played its part here.I was surprised to read Scuba as in scuba diving and Radar are actually acronyms. And there are many such nuggets of interesting informationIn the book.The author being a congress politician has taken digs at BJP and Modi at several places. I thought it had no place in a wonderful book like this.If you love English language, it's nuances and subtleties you will love this book.5/5.

The title of the book was enticing enough to read it. Written by the maven of English language, Shashi Tharoor covered everything about the language - right from the etymology, history and geography of words. I learned many new words while reading this book, which is something I look forward to in every book that I read. This book made me laugh with every chapter. How English has evolved over generations, is remarkably written in this well-drafted and well-crafted book!

I bet I never have had such an interesting time.Clock is useless when you read.

The book tells about..how the words or phrases were invented n where...teaches alot about words...so it is actually a wonderful or u can say ... Wonderland of words😊

A Master's class from the doyen of English in contemporary India. His love and play of words and language is infectious.

आदरणीय शशी थरूर सहाबने यह किताब बहुत ही अच्छी लिखी है!अच्छे अच्छे शब्द का ये भंडार है!सिल्याबस शब्द सिटीबस से आया है ये मुझे यहा परपढणे को मिला है! मैं टीचर होकेभी मुझे मालूम नही था!यह किताब तो मेरे लिये एक संदर्भ ग्रंथ आहे!थँक्यू सो मच आदरणीय शशी थरूरजी.खाडे बी. सी. परभणी.

We have been hearing or reading Shashi Tharoor since long. But this book brings all his humour and knowledge in one place and also makes it very up to date. For anyone who wishes to be correctly understood or not to be misunderstood, this book has valuable information.