The Liar's Dictionary

 

The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm a sucker for trivia about words, new words--clowder is a grouping of cats-- and the history of words and this book has plenty of that sort of trivia. This is also a quirky book with surprising plot twists and some transcendent passages (also plenty of passages where nothing happens and it plods along). Its a book that illustrates both the power and powerlessness of words and how transitory language can be. Its a fun book.

View all my reviews

jungftak (n.), a Persian bird, the male of which had only one wing, on the right side, and the female only one wing, on the left side; instead of the missing wings, the male had a hook of bone, and the female an eyelet of bone, and it was by uniting hook and eye that they were enabled to fly—each, when alone, had to remain on the ground from Webster’s Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language (1943)

If you put your eyes far too close to an engraving all is little dots and dashes, like a fingerprint unspooled.

In many ways David Swansby looked like his handwriting: ludicrously tall, neat, squared off at the edges.

David meant apricity (n.), the warmness of the sun in winter.

Apricide (n.) means the ceremonial slaughter of pigs.

Weasel words are empty, hollow, meaningless claims.

curriebuction 1. A confused gathering attended with quarrelling or panic

When a cartoon character is represented swearing or cursing, there is a word for the series of hashtags and exclamation marks and toxicity symbols in their speech bubbles: grawlix. @# $%&!