I still remember the moment I became excited about WORDS. It was on the day I discovered that my favourite supper — a huge helping of lasagne with oodles of bubbling cheese — was actually named after a toilet. Of course I was completely horrified, but I knew I had to find out more.

Once I’d tracked the story all the way back to Roman times, and understood quite how a chamber pot came to mean the Italian dish we know today (you can read the story later in this book), I discovered another amazing thing — once you start digging into the words we use every day, you just can’t stop. Just how did an earwig get its name? Why do some of us find the idea of kissing under the mistletoe completely YUCKY (it’s not what you think!)? And why does the idea of a partridge in a pear tree make some of us snigger?

It turns out that English is packed with stories like these, adventures full of BLOOD, POISON, GHOULS and MONSTERS — even FARTS and PANTS. And the best part is that they are all under cover, hidden below the surface — it’s up to us to go and find them. In fact I’d be thrilled* if, like me, you too become a WORD DETECTIVE and begin to explore the weird world of words yourself.

*Though not in the usual sense of the word — just wait!

 

There are many, many more surprises out there waiting for you, and a lot of them are hiding between the pages of a dictionary.

Who knows: if you love the adventures as much as I do, maybe one day you too will sit in Dictionary Corner, spreading the word!