There Are Tittles in This Title: The Weird World of Words by Mitchell Symons
| There Are Tittles in This Title: The Weird World of Words by Mitchell Symons | |
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| Category: Trivia | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: Tittle are the dots above 'i's. There is a case here of Symons not quite tittling all his 'i's nor crossing all his 't's. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Maybe |
| Pages: 192 | Date: October 2014 |
| Publisher: Michael O'Mara | |
| ISBN: 9781782432579 | |
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I love spending time with Mitchell Symons books. If you don't know him, he's written this book, that book, and a book actually called This Book and a book actually called That Book. He knows his trivia, he gets a lot of info on the page, and can really come across at the best of times as a convivial host. So pair him, as has happened here, with the weird and wonderful world of words and only great things could be expected. Unfortunately, then, only just above average things were achieved.
The volume starts fine, with trivia about some rare or forgotten words, and statements of the unusual and unexpected regarding our fine language. There are some box-outs regarding the derivation of some terms and phrases, which don't always come in the best of places as regards flow. Here are kangaroo words (in which a similarly-defined word is piggy-backed, such as the tomb in catacomb), meeting Shakespeare's neologisms. So far so standard, and quite enjoyable, even if each page seems to mimic something I've read before elsewhere, and not really go too far.
But the second half doesn't get much better. Some of the connections to the more literary side of things are quite obscure, and when it gets to lists of wacky things students have put on their exam papers, we're in the realm of just cutting and pasting viral files and urban myths. Can anyone (or would anyone actually be bothered to) verify some Tw*tter typos? I thought not.
So this was very much a missed opportunity, but just as is the way of such things there are great instances of learning, for me and for everyone. As an eager player I enjoyed the page of Scrabble trivia (although the bit where 'the most valuable words' are itemised is about a thousand points short and should be called something like 'most valuable likely hands'). I didn't know to run amok used a word from Papua New Guinea. I didn't know why we have spitting images. I do know now, but with these pages and this author I really thought I was going to keep the book as a goldmine of similar things to dip into. You can still pan this book for nuggets, but the veins are nowhere near as deep as possible.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
More weird words that only one author could revive? You need The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language by Mark Forsyth.
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You can read more book reviews or buy There Are Tittles in This Title: The Weird World of Words by Mitchell Symons at Amazon.com.
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