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jenn

Murder by Death

I read cozy and historical mysteries, a bit of Paranormal/UF, and to mix it up, I read science and gardening books on occasion.

Going to Hell in a Hen Basket

Going to Hell in a Hen Basket: An Illustrated Dictionary of Modern Malapropisms - Robert Alden Rubin

Subtitle: An Illustrated Dictionary of Modern Malapropisms

 

A thorough non-academic dictionary of malapropisms and eggcorns.  (An eggcorn is a malapropism that have a sort of semantic logic, like feeble position.)

 

The book isn't meant to poke fun at the people who might have written a malapropism, but to serve as a reference of sorts, for those who love language and the different ways it can be shaped, especially accidentally.

 

Entries are alphabetical, include known variants, possible theories as to how they came to be, examples, and dated citations of sightings on the web.

 

Lightly amusing and a celebration of the funny side of English, I had a good giggle paging through the entries.

 

(Not including this as part of my 20 books of summer.)