Ogden Nash did not write this poem.
Shake and shake the catsup bottle first none’ll come and then a lot’ll
That’s Richard Armour, though it has been wrongly attributed to Nash. To Mr. Armour, a word of thanks.
Which is already inaccurate, because I’ve used several words to this point.
And that’s the kind of joke that Richard Armour made in his delightful, learned romps like The Classics Reclassified, It All Started with Columbus, and American Lit Relit. Look him up. His writings may come from the days before squeeze ketchup bottles, but they will live far longer than the bio-undegradeable plastic in those bottles.
And that’s my point in this bibliography.
Relax, enjoy. We argue so damn much over this language. Let’s instead celebrate it.
Start with Armour. Then go find Dave Barry’s “Mr. Language Person” columns (“brought to you this week by Ray’s House of Fine
224
Bill Brohaugh
Adverbs. Remember Ray’s motto: ‘Proudly Serving You, Eventually’”). Absolutely do not ignore Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct. Check out Willard Espy’s Almanac of Words at Play and Richard Lederer's energetic Anguished English and its many followups. Absorb yourself in David Crystal’s numerous linguistic travelogues. And for overall good and informed reading about the history of English, I can't recommend the first book on my unbibliography enough:
• Our Marvelous Native Tongue, by Robert Claiborne, Three Rivers Press (1987).
• The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, Steven Pinker, William Morrow and Co., New York (1994).
• The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot and Left, by David Crystal, Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York (2006).
• The Dictionary of Disagreeable English: A Curmudgeon’s Compendium of Excruciatingly Correct Grammar, by Robert Hartwell Fiske, Writer’s Digest Books, Cincinnati (Deluxe Edition 2006).
• Devious Derivations: Popular Misconceptions and More Than 1,000 True Origins of Common Words and Phrases, by Hugh Rawson, Crown Publishers, New York (1994).
• Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends, by David Wilton, Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York (2004).
• Grammatically Correct: The Writer's Essential Guide to Punctuation, Spelling, Style, Usage and Grammar, by Anne Stilman, Writer’s Digest Books, Cincinnati (2004).
• Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins, by Michael Quinion, Smithsonian Books, Washington D.C. (2004).
• The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, ed. by Robert K. Barnhart, HarperCollinsPublishers, New York (1995).
• The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, vols I and II, ed. by Lesley Brown, Clarendon Press, Oxford ( T 993)-
• A Browser’s Dictionary and Native’s Guide to the Unknown American Language, by John Ciardi, Harper & Row, New York (1980), and A Second Browser’s Dictionary and Native’s Guide to the Unknown American Language, by John Ciardi, Harper & Row, New York (1983).
• A History of English in Its Own Words, by Craig M. Carver, HarperCollins, New York (1991).
• Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories, ed. by Frederick C. Mish, Merriam-Webster, Springfield MA (1991).
• Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, 2nd ed., by William and Mary Morris, Harper & Row, New York (1988).
• oed.com, the Oxford English Dictionary online
• wordorigins.org, from David Wilton and a lively discussion forum
• worldwidewords.org, Michael Quinion’s website
• bartleby.com, which includes The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
• word-detective.com, operated by Evan Morris
• dictionary.com and the related thesaurus.com
• etymonline.com
• funwords.com, Martha Barnette’s website
• The Maven's Word of the Day, http://www.randomhouse.com/
wotd/index.pperl?action=dly_alph_arc&fn=word
• verbivore.com, Richard Lederer’s website