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Article: Anatoly Liberman. An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction.(Book review)
- Article from:
- Scandinavian Studies
- Article date:
- December 22, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Anatoly Liberman. An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction. Minneapolis: U Minnesota P, 2008. Pp. 359. $50.00.
The title of this volume does not quite describe what it implies in that only a handful of etymologies are dealt with. (It is in fact subtitled An Introduction.) Liberman thoroughly considers what can only be termed difficult or unsolved etymologies of fifty-five words that are common in standard speech, refer to certain plants, or are slang (and be includes the word "slang" itself). The introduction explains that his selection is taken from three sources: I) "words of Germanic origin, regardless of the details of their history"; 2) ...