A HISTORY OF ENGLISH IN ITS OWN...

A HISTORY OF ENGLISH IN ITS OWN WORDS by Craig M. Carver (HarperPerennial: $9, illustrated). As Carver writes a regular column on word histories for the Atlantic, it’s not surprising he’s amassed the interesting facts and stories in this entertaining anthology. He dismisses the popular notions that woman is a blend of womb and man or woe and man , and traces the word back to the Old English wifman , a combination of wif (woman) and man (person, human being). Horace Walpole coined serendipity in 1754, using the Persian fairy tale “The Three Princes of Serendip” as a source; although ghetto was adopted into English in the 16th Century, its uncertain roots remain the subject of debate among etymologists. Readers who need to check a word’s origins can look here instead of crying “May Day!”--an expression Carver explains as the phonetic English rendition of the French m’aider , short for venez m’aider (come help me!).