Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As a word lover I am delighted with the range and variety of the words chosen for this book. Unfortunately it suffers from many of the typical flaws of such etymological books written by nonspecialists. It mixes accepted knowledge with folk etymologies without clearly distinguishing between them. Sometimes it appears that the author is not even aware of the difference. For example, it repeats the story that "amazon" is from the Greek "without breast" without acknowledging that this derivation was a folk etymology in Classical Greek times. It repeats the story that "assassin" comes from the alleged use of hashish by the Hashshashin, without mentioning the controversial nature of this claim. It even makes the totally erroneous claim that "dinosaur" was coined in 1841, "shortly after" the publication of Descent of Man, when Descent of Man was published in 1872, thirty years later. If you're interested in reading some entertaining stories about interesting words, this book is fine. If you care whether those stories are true, or at least widely accepted among scholars, you'd be better served by looking for a more well researched book.