I found out about this book from the Public Libraries Singapore’s Instagram and could not resist picking this up. While my English has been steadily getting worse (I used to think that it’s because my brain was replacing it with Japanese but clearly this is not the case anymore), I still enjoy reading about the language and hoping that books like this will help me retain some measure of proficiency.

The Accidental Dictionary is a selection of words and their origins. For example, did you know that:

Hussy originally meant ‘housewife’? Apparently, it was a shortened form of the word and when it first appeared in the 1500s, it “referred to the female head of a household, and at one time even enjoyed the same connotations of thriftiness and skill with money.”

Man originally meant ‘person’? Yes, it was a gender-neutral word! The Old-English word for a male person was wer, which has fallen out of use.

Obsess originally meant ‘torment’? The book says that this is “far removed from its current meaning” but the history makes sense. When it first appeared in the mid-1400s, it referred to the ability of evil spirits to control or ‘obsess’ a person’s body. As the paranormal meaning of the word faded with the word’s broadening, this word began to refer to something or someone that preoccupies someone’s mind. It’s similar to the idea of evil spirits controlling a person, if you ask me.

Personally, I don’t have any criticisms of this book. I am not familiar with the etymology of various words so I can’t say if it’s accurate, but I was greatly entertained and learnt quite a bit while reading it. It’s great for people who want to know more about the words they use every day but don’t want to sit through a whole podcast about the history of the English language.

(That said, the History of English podcast is amazing and you should definitely listen to that.)

While I read this book pretty much more or less in one sitting, it’s definitely not the type of book that demands it. Most of the chapters aren’t related and you can dip in and out of the book very easily. It’s the perfect book for picking up and reading when you have five minutes of the spare time.

That is, assuming you didn’t get the library copy like I did. Because you’ll have to return that and rushing through it detracted from the fun a bit.

Featured Image: Image from Canva’s Photo Library