Immagine dell'autore.

Sol Steinmetz (1930–2010)

Autore di Chambers Dictionary of Etymology

10 opere 745 membri 3 recensioni

Opere di Sol Steinmetz

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Nome canonico
Steinmetz, Sol
Data di nascita
1930-07-29
Data di morte
2010-10-13
Sesso
male
Nazionalità
USA
Luogo di nascita
Budapest, Hungary
Luogo di morte
New York, New York, USA
Luogo di residenza
New Rochelle, New York, USA
Istruzione
Yeshiva University
Columbia University
Attività lavorative
lexicographer

Utenti

Recensioni

This book was both too specific and too general at the same time. The chapters were incredibly short and breezed through concepts and examples. Which might be fine for someone with linguistic knowledge but I needed more to sink my teeth into.

Read 56 pages (per Nancy Pearl's rule).
 
Segnalato
Bodagirl | 1 altra recensione | Nov 9, 2022 |
This book presents us with a collection of English words whose meanings have changed over time, complete with explanations of where they originally came from, what they used to mean, and how they evolved to where they are now. Each word gets about three paragraphs, so it's not a terribly long and in-depth discussion, but it covers the basic ideas, and includes citations and examples.

Individually, I found a lot of these very interesting, and there were a few nice "aha, that's where that phrase comes from!" moments, as I realized that some usage or other that always seemed a bit odd to me has, in fact, merely preserved an obsolete sense of a word. But even though I consider myself something of a word-lover, and even though I generally only read through a few of entries at a time, after a while it all started to blur together and it became hard not to feel like I was reading the same thing over and over again. Still, as a whole, it illustrates some interesting general patterns in word evolution, including positive or neutral terms becoming negative, specific terms becoming general, literal meanings being lost in favor of metaphorical ones, and words from surprisingly diverse origins all ending up as disparaging terms for "a loose woman."

I did spot a couple of small mistakes here. In the entry on "browse," Steinmetz appears to be completely confused about what an internet browser is, and his contention that "the astronomical meaning of eccentric has only historical relevance today" would come as a surprise to modern astronomers, for whom the term is still entirely relevant. But those aren't exactly major problems.
… (altro)
½
 
Segnalato
bragan | Jun 29, 2012 |
This book wasn't quite what I was expecting but I still found it somewhat interesting. There was a lot about verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc. and how they are formed from one another and many lists of examples of the different ways in which English acquires new words. The authors are writing for the nonspecialist and they try to cover their subject in an entertaining manner. However, i will be returning to this book only when I want to look up a specific area of word formation. Included is a list of books consulted and a suggested reading list.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
hailelib | 1 altra recensione | Dec 11, 2010 |

Liste

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Statistiche

Opere
10
Utenti
745
Popolarità
#34,104
Voto
4.1
Recensioni
3
ISBN
18

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