Books for Gift Giving

Hey, Grant, you know, it’s that time of year again when people ask us to recommend great books for their word-loving friends and family.

So what books are you suggesting people buy for the holidays?

No, you’re right. I’ve been getting a lot of emails about that.

I always fear, though, that the books I recommend will show up in my presence.

Well, then you re-gift, right?

Right, you re-gift because you get three copies of the same book.

But there are two things that I’m really excited about right now, and they actually represent two different sides of my language life.

One of them is FUBAR, The Soldier Slaying of World War II.

This is by Gordon L. Rotman.

It’s a small dictionary.

And he’s done something I haven’t seen before.

Not only does he have English language, military slang, mostly army slang from North America,

But he also has a section of Tommy, Aussie, Canuck, and Kiwi talk.

That is all the Commonwealth English-speaking countries.

And more importantly, he has German military slang from World War II.

Wow.

And that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

He really did a fantastic job of bringing it together.

And it’s a beautiful little small book.

And I think this is the kind of thing that anybody could get, a young boy or an old man or anybody in there, a young lady who’s thinking about a career in the military.

The other one, and you’ll recognize how exactly opposite this is, but still within the language realm, is Ad Infinitum.

It’s a biography of Latin, and it’s by Nicholas Osler.

The thing about this book is that he really has done a thorough job of doing his research.

This isn’t your lightweight, hey, Latin’s kind of wacky, Latin’s kind of old, hey, let’s check it out.

It’s none of that stuff.

But on the other, he’s telling a story here, Martha.

He’s telling us about the history of the countries where Latin was used,

The history of the armies that spread the language.

He’s talking about the people.

It’s a great read.

It’s something I’ve been dipping into every day for just a little bit.

Wow, I can’t wait to get my hands on that.

What’s the name of that again?

That’s Ad Infinitum, a biography of Latin by Nicholas Osler.

Love it.

O-S-T-L-E-R.

Love it.

Well, let me give you my picks.

One of them is by Michael Wex.

He’s that Canadian author who specializes in Yiddish, who also happens to be an extremely funny guy.

We had him on the show a while back.

His other book is called Born to Kvetch, Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods.

And he’s got a new book about Yiddish now with an equally catchy title.

Get this, Just Say New, of course.

Yiddish for every occasion.

And it’s about how to weave Yiddish into your everyday life, whether you’re cursing behind somebody in traffic

Or you want to describe somebody’s anatomy with just the right nuance.

And like his other book, this one’s funny, but it’s surprisingly instructive.

But, you know, Grant, I see that there’s also an abridged audio version of the book that’s read by Wex himself.

And if I were going to buy a holiday gift, I might buy that because, number one, he has this wonderfully kvetchy voice, Michael Wex.

And the other thing is that looking at those pronunciations, those Yiddish pronunciations written out on the page can sometimes be kind of daunting to read.

Just Say New is one of my recommendations.

And the other one that I would recommend is a book by Anu Garg.

And, of course, Grant, as you know, he runs the Word Today website at wordsmith.org.

Right.

And his new book is called The Doored, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two.

And it’s subtitled The Hidden Lives and Strange Origins of Common and Not-So-Common Words.

And it’s like his Word-A-Day newsletter, you know, which celebrates all these individual words and talks about them.

I didn’t know, for example, that magigraphia is the medical term for writer’s cramp.

That’s M-O-G-I-G-R-A-P-H-I-A, magigraphia.

It’s light, it’s airy, it’s lots of fun.

And I think it would be a great gift for that high schooler that you’re trying to get interested in words themselves

Or for anybody else who’s interested in just splashing around in language when it comes to interesting words and vocabulary.

So those are my picks.

Just Say New by Michael Wex and Anu Garg’s book, The Doored, The Die Glot, and An Avocado or Two.

So if you’ve come across a language book that you’re crazy about, why not tell us about it on our discussion forum?

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