'Pedigree Words from Nature' is an etymological work – looking at the
development of natural history words in the English language from their origins
to present usage. A surprising number of everyday words can be traced back to
some link with the natural world – less surprisingly when one considers how much
closer to the soil our ancestors lived. We are familiar with the fact that many
of our places are derived from animals or plants, Brockenhurst or Okeover, for
example. But this book looks more at the origins of the names of the animals and
plants themselves. Many of these date back many centuries and often have close
equivalents in several European languages. This may be true even when the name is
based on a complete fallacy. The presence of nightjars hawking for insects at
dusk near to animal pens led the Greeks to think that the birds used their large
mouths to drink milk from the stock – hence the name “goatsucker” which was used
in several European languages and even in the bird’s scientific name Caprimulgus.
- from the TLS review currently online
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