A Wonderland of Words: Around the Word in 101 Essays

Shashi Tharoor has done it again, this time educating us on the language he is often a meme on. The wonderful world of English, our ideas of right and wrong and the adverse effects of a colonial past all blend into one very entertaining, hilarious and thought provoking narrative that helps you delve deeper into the language

'Farrago'. When we read or hear this word who comes to our minds.? Yes. Shashi Tharoor, the handsome and colourful MP from Thiruvananthapuram. He is the author of this enchanting book. The book traces origins and etymology of words commonly or not so commonly used in English language. It is written with lots of humour and provides interesting trivias about people and places without which the book would have made for dry reading. The book is spread across 101 small and crisply written chapters with exotic names. For example there is a chapter titled Pleonasms or Dysphemism which denotes certain way of usage of words. There is a chapter Indianism. Highly interesting.I wished this particular chapter was longer.Most of it we know but what I didn't know was it has a name. English as we know now is about 600 years old and about 2/3 rd of its words have origins in a foreign language mostly French. Many commonly used words which I assumed was English is actually French. Trivia: There is a novel of fifty thousand words without containing the letter 'e'. There is a chapter on banned words in Stanford University. Looks like wokeism played its part here. I was surprised to read Scuba as in scuba diving and Radar are actually acronyms. And there are many such nuggets of interesting information In the book. The author being a congress politician has taken digs at BJP and Modi at several places. I thought it had no place in a wonderful book like this. If you love English language, it's nuances and subtleties you will love this book. 5/5.

I bought this book to gift someone, ended up reading while traveling. Unable to read in entirety but whatever read was really wonderful 😊, interesting info on punctuation, use of words and the way it's understood by different countries are well pen down.

The book tells about..how the words or phrases were invented n where...teaches alot about words...so it is actually a wonderful or u can say ... Wonderland of words😊

A book worth reading for the English language enthusiasts

It’s a rare gem. A book of immense value and intellectual genius. The book is a treasure trove to get multitudinous facets of the evolution of English language. A deeply researched book, I am also getting besotted to increasing my vocabulary. Hats off to the author for penning such a rare gem.

A very interesting book for anyone who loves to know the origin of things.

One of the most wholesome books I ever read!

Too much information - this is more like a small encyclopedia. Difficult to read this like a book. TMI!