If you are hunting for a suitable gift for someone who is educated and interested in the English language, I should say: look no further. Anu Garg presents the reader with an exhilarating guided tour through the intriguing and marvellous world of English words. The reader steps through the looking-glass into a landscape affording adventure and delight.

There are chapters on: the ‘hidden lives’ of ‘everyday words’; well-known people, places and even streets, which are transmuted into words in everyday use; lexicography, etymology, mythology and similar sources of words; language groups that are related, and so forth.

For instance, did you know that the word ‘bless’ derives from the Old English ‘bledsian’, meaning blood? When we bless someone, we might not wish them to become bloodied. And yet, “Consecrating something involved smearing sacrificial blood over it.” (pg 2)

Then there are fictional characters who become common nouns, such as ‘a scrooge’ (from Charles Dickens). Sometimes, an entire country— such as Laconia in ancient southern Greece— turns into an adjective such as ‘laconic’.

There are also puzzles to intrigue and delight a student or teacher of English. On page 60, there is mention of kangaroo words “which carry a little joey— a smaller version of themselves within their spellings….”  Thus, if ‘respite’ has ‘rest’ within it, can you find the joey words in ‘curtail, regulates, splotch, deceased’?

The word ‘silly’, starting life as ‘seely’ meaning pious, blessed and good, has come a long way and not to the good: chameleon-like changing colour from ‘harmless’ and innocent’ to ‘stupid’ and even ‘ridiculous’.
Being sea-sick could well be the origin of ‘nausea’, says Garg (pg 9). It derives from the Greek word ‘naus’ meaning a ship.

However, it has also been said that the art of navigation had its origins in the river Sindh about 6000 years ago; and that ‘navigation’ is derived from the Sanskrit ‘navigatih’. And as ‘nautilus’ and ‘astronaut’ may be derived from the Greek ‘naus’, so too might ‘navy’ owe to the Sanksrit ‘nav’. Since Garg recognises rightly that Sanksrit is related to Greek and other languages, there is no contention here.

As Garg remarks humourously, “A diglot isn’t someone who digs a lot.” Rather, he adds, it is someone who is bilingual or speaks two languages.

The reader may discover the meaning of ‘dord’ under his or her own steam.

In sum, this is the most informative and enjoyable book that I have read in a long time.

Vasumathi Krishnasami

The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two
by Anu Garg
Plume, Penguin Books, 2007
pp. i – 180, Rs 225.00