Overview

"""How to Get Your Name in the Dictionary"" is a light-hearted look at the lives of the soldiers, inventors, style icons, and villains who gave their names to the English language as eponyms. From atlas to zeppelin English is full of words named for Greek gods, explorers, serious scientists, and crafty chefs. These heroes and heroines, scattered through world history, all did something extraordinary to squeeze their name into the dictionary, and this book celebrates their biographies.More than 260 eponyms are featured across subjects as diverse as food, Irish history, calendars, hats, inventions, words named after places, Greek gods, military history, politics, astronomy, fashion, popular phrases, villians, science, and a selection of eponyms which simply defy categorisation. Ideal for word geeks, history lovers, and biography buffs."

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9781999977603

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"Grace Tierney is a columnist, author, and blogger writing in rural Ireland. Her award winning Wordfoolery blog about the history of unusual English words has been running for ten years. She deploys her passion for history to explore the meaning and origin of uniquely Irish words such as ""spud"" or ""pooka,"" investigates the people behind eponyms like ""Ferris"" or ""Pavlova,"" and simply enjoys the humour to be found in ""kibitz,"" ""friggatriskaidekaphobia,"" ""mumpsimus,"" and ""polliwog."" Grace's favourite eponymous hero is Casanova because his swashbuckling life was so extraordinary, definitely not the average librarian."

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