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11/26/08: Recommended by Dean Koontz, Lawrence Block, Richard Lederer and Steven Raichlen
With Black Friday looming, I today offer unhumble suggestions for your holiday shopping list. (It's a commercial, dammit! I admit it! And I'm not kidding about the headline.)
   I've just received the good news that Writer's Digest Books will publish my Unfortunate English in paperback in Fall of 2009. The hardcover remains available, and I humbly suggest it for the word lovers on your Christmas list. And other lists, as well. The subtitle of the book is "The Gloomy Truth Behind the Words You Use," which is so appropriate for the upcoming festive season, don't you agree? Classy cloth binding, nicely creepy illustrations, and the same snarky sense of humor you've come to expect on this site (for better or worse).
Other vaguely humble suggestions for my books that are possibly enjoyable by people other than my mom (see the headline):
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Write Tight: Say Exactly What You Mean With Precision and Power
> "These days, most creative-writing courses teach self-indulgence. Write Tight counsels discipline. It is worth more than a university education. Its advice is gold." — Dean Koontz, #1 New York Times bestselling author
> "If you read Write Tight, and if you apply its lessons, you will be a better writer." — Lawrence Block, Mystery Writers of America Grand Master
> "Write Tight is a supremely valuable 'must-have' for aspiring writers in all fields." — Midwest Book Review
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Everything You Know About English Is Wrong
> "If you love language and the unvarnished truth, you'll love Everything You Know About English Is Wrong. You'll have fun because his lively, comedic, skeptical voice will speak to you from the pages of his word-bethumped book." — Richard Lederer, author of Anguished English and other popular word books
> "The book provides a good counterpoint to Lynne Truss’s anxiety-inducing Eats, Shoots & Leaves and will be enjoyed by everyone who can’t quite admit to being amused by William Safire because they can’t get past his politics. In other words, Brohaugh is funner." — FeatureBook.com
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The Grill of Victory: Hot Competition on the Barbecue Circuit
> "It's not about words, but it uses them." — Bill Brohaugh, author of The Grill of Victory"
> "Thank you, William Brohaugh. Thank you for writing this book. Barbecue is the better for it." — Doug Mosley in The National Barbecue News
> "A must read for aspiring pit masters and great for armchair cooks, too." — Steven Raichlen, author of The Barbecue Bible
> "The blend of travel, social and culinary history is exceptional and fun in this highly recommended pick." — Midwest Book Review
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In a slurry
As both a wordie and a foodie, I'm completely embarrassed that I've never before encountered the word slurry. I discovered this word after entering a recipe contest sponsored by a Chinese restaurant near me. While patrolling the recipes posted on the restaurant's web site, I spotted this in a list of ingredients for orange chicken: "cornstarch slurry for thickening." Neither the concoction nor its intent surprised me. A little cornstarch in water thickens sauces and juices in heat, much like flour in a gravy, though with a thinner texture. I've used this perhaps hundreds of times before. Even so, the word surprised me.
In a nonfood context, slurry is a thin mud. The word derived from slur, also a thin mud. As well, the muddy physical slur gave us the verb slur—to figuratively stain with mud.
I made finals in the contest, but went no further. My recipe called for no slurry, neither with cornstarch nor with mud. But after the judges tasted it with a slurp (unrelated word), they apparently bestowed the figurative mud of slurs upon the entry in their evaluations.
I hope, though, that they didn't find my recipe so distasteful as to apply a meaning of slurry that arose in the mid '60s. Quoting The Oxford English Dictionary: "A mixture of manure or farmyard waste and water; manure in fluid form." Unforunate English indeed.
(Side note: This word exploration mirrors my recent post on the Everything You Know About English Is Wrong blog, which covers a variety of grammatical, etymological and grump-making topics. See the item directly below for more information on the wrongosity of our grasp of English.)
Everything You Know About English Is Wrong
A lot of what we "know" about English is BS, which stands for . . . well, you know what it means. And it's bull, too. But didn't I just say that?
Yes and no. BS is short for . . . that. Bull is not short for that, despite the common assumption. Bull has a separate origin—and that's the thrust of my latest project, Everything You Know About English Is Wrong.
Some of the book's revelations (or, should I say, clarifications):
- Winston Churchill did not say "That is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put." Or anything close to it.
- English does not come from England.
- Impact as a verb is not bad English—it is, in fact, perfect English usage.
- Hookers do not take their name from Civil War general Joseph Hooker.
- The proof is not in the pudding.
Want to find more misconceptions to argue about? Visit Everything You Know About English Is Wrong, the main website, or the blog: which is here, and reiterates why I hate the word blog. |
The gloomy truth behind the words you use
What sensitivities are you secretly offending when you use the words poppycock, bonfire, and porcelain? What political incorrectness are you courting when you describe someone or something as ethnic? Who have you insulted, what sensitivity have you jostled, what breach of propriety have you committed when you use such remarkably innocent words as butterfly, gymnasium, and fizzle?
Explore the Dark Side of the language . . .
Unfortunate English uncovers older meanings of words that are out of joint with almost everyone's sense of propriety--word histories that reveal the deintensification of the disgusting, the generalization of the ribald, the disguising of the grotesque, and the mutation of the offensive.
So open the book and start having fun ... or maybe you shouldn't, considering that fun originally meant ... well, something different |
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