Review: Word Catcher

If you are a word nerd, you will love this book. If you are not a word nerd, tread carefully because it might turn you into a word nerd. And if you suffer from hippomonstrosesqipedaliophobia (the fear of long words) then you had better just avoid this book altogether.

It contains the fascinating history of words from the everyday (calm, love) to entertaining (canoodle, kerfuffle, whipplesnizzit), as well as words that make you grateful this book comes with definitions so you don't have to run to the dictionary every time you turn the page. Although the author is a proponent of keeping your dictionary handy in your daily life.

I don't know how I've lived so many years without words like these:

Petrichor: the smell of rain rising from the earth
Borborygmus: the rumble in the jungle of your tummy
Fribble: to kill time
Noctambulation: guiding one's way through the night
Drachenfutter: an olive branch to your lover or spouse
Seeksorrow: one who looks for trouble, sees sorrow everywhere
Aphilophrenia: the haunting feeling, however fleeting, that one is unloved
Clouderpuffs: scarcely visible summer clouds
Flizzen: to laugh with every muscle in your face
Verbicide: word killing; language torture
Tomecide: book killing
Mondegreen: a mishearing of a song lyric that leads to a fresh new meaning, often humorous (when I was a child, I always wondered what a marezeedote and a dozeedote were--"Mares eat oats, and does eat oats")

But there was a word or two, though fascinating, that I'm pretty sure I can live without, if only because I don't want to take the time to learn to pronounce them (floccinaucinihilipilification).