38: Words in Your Ear, Tom Burton

Amusing blurbs on language, mostly etymology and the changing meaning of words.


Two amusing bits from the requisite prepositions-at-the-end-of-a-sentence chapter:

A child asked the babysitter to bring a book from downstairs and read her a bedtime story. When the babysitter returned with the wrong book, the child demanded furiously, "What did you bring that book I don't want to be read to out of up for?"

The sex-starved daughter of a prison governor offered a male prisoner whom she fancied the chance to escape from jail if he would sleep with her. He replied, "It's a tempting offer; but I'm afraid it's against my principles to end a sentence with a proposition."

Words, Words, Words, Burton's earlier book is hard to find outside Australia, but I'll keep an eye out.