WORD NERD

Did you know that pilots and air traffic controllers at major international airports have to speak English? Or that the hashtag symbol is an octothorpe, bumfiddle means to spoil a piece of paper or document, noon originally meant 3pm, and the literal meaning of bamboozle is to make a baboon out of someone? This book contains a boatload of weird and wonderful things about the English language, from fascinating etymology to the ten most overused and useless phrases.