| HOT FOR WORDS The Answers To All Your Burning Questions About Words and Their Meanings Marina Orlova New York: HarperCollins, Aug. 2009 |
Rating: 3.5 Fair |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-06-177631-1 | ||||
| ISBN-10 0-06-177631-9 | 178pp. | SC/FCI | $14.99 | |
Suddenly, a stranger appeared on the Web. Tall she was, and gorgeous, with a mane of flowing hair the color of cornsilk. Her wide grey eyes looked out from her YouTube videos, transfixing us. She spoke with a charming Russian accent, inquiring whether we knew the origin of this word or that one: words like "coultophobia"; phrases like "head over heels." Soon her channel had 170,000 subscribers. Now she's appeared in print with a flawed but reasonable first book. Her purpose remains the same. As she somewhat redundantly puts it:
"When you start looking at the origins of words, it opens up a whole new world for you—a world with a great view of history—in little bite-sized chunks." Once you've been exposed to the amazing world of words, you will suddenly find yourself asking more and more questions about where words and phrases come from. That is the goal of this book: To get you curious about the world of word origins, and about your own society's history, as revealed through word origins." – Page 7? |
So says Ms. Orlova, on YouTube and in her book. It has become her catch-phrase. On the back of the book, she continues:
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"Good morning, dear students, and welcome to my favorite class: philology, or the love of words. For me, nothing is more seductive than a good word origin story. I can't get enough. I mean, have you ever wondered what the word "cocktail" has to do with drinks? Or whether "hussy" was always an insult? Or why Benedict got his very own egg recipe? These are the types of questions that keep me awake all night long. Whether you've been a straight-A follower of my YouTube channel or this is your first adventure in philology, I think that soon you'll be just as hot for words as I am! Are you ready for class to begin?" |
This class is a short one. Drawing on her YouTube fame as the hottest professor of philology on the Web, Ms. Orlova has induced HarperCollins to publish a short paperback extending those lessons into the world of print. I doubt that there is a better demonstration of the difference between the two media, and why what works as interactive video does not translate effectively to the older medium.
Marina's little book is long on pictures and short on the subject it purports to convey: words, and their origins and meanings. Its 208 pages explain just 72 words and phrases. Paging through the book, one gets the impression that these lessons are secondary in importance to images of its author. She is undeniably a very beautiful woman, and the images are well-composed and attractive. But, in her book, the abundance of such images distracts the reader from all other content. (On YouTube, owing to its different nature, there is a better balance between words and images.)
This derogatory perception is reinforced by the apparent prevalence1 of suggestive words ("buxom"; "erotic"; "orgy"; "hooker"; "horny"; and "hussy") and by the choice of titles for various sections ("The Bare Essentials"; "The Naked Truth"; "Fully Exposed"; and "The Laws of Attraction").
The result is a package that many will view as nothing but soft-core porn, or at best a cheesy knockoff in the style of Playboy. This is unfortunate, for Ms. Orlova really is intelligent2 and she really does love teaching about words; the entries for a good many of the words in the book — e.g. "muscles" and "gymnastics" — are genuinely educational. Even the treatment of those suggestive words qualifies as educational, in fact; and it sometimes rises to a level that can fairly be called erudite. (See the entry for "hooker".) Many of the entries add value by including a multiple choice quiz.
To illustrate, I'll reproduce the entry for "horny" (minus the pictures) because it is brief. It also demonstrates a sly, if sophomoric, sense of humor.
FOR SOME STRANGE REASON, lots of my dear students have requested that I explain the derivation of this word. So, eager students, let's play a little game here. I'll give you three possible origins of this word. See if you can pick the correct one.
| A. | the Vikings had a ritual, popular circa A.D. 1000, of blowing a special horn when they wanted to have sexual intercourse. The sound of the horn meant that women had to go to the source of the sound and have sexual intercourse with the men. |
| B. | the English Puritans believed that sexual desires were the work of the Devil, and that those who provoked and encouraged such desires might as well be wearing the Devil's horns. |
| C. | a man's private part, when aroused, looks kind of like a horn. |
(Answer: C. The English word horn is quite old, dating back to the Proto-Indo-European ker-, which means the "uppermost part of the body." The expression "to have horn" comes from the late eighteenth century.
I'll give her an incomplete on the answer to that quiz. I think it needs a little more elaboration. But for the book, I'll give her a grade of "B minus" (a 3.5 rating) because she's from Russia and because she's more accustomed to video, this being her first time in print. My hope is that she'll try again, and that this time she finds a production team who can better balance the elements of the book. I don't expect her to be another Ruth Wajnryb or Susan Kelz Sperling, but young folks today need all the incentive to build wider vocabularies they can get. If she can turn out another volume that entices them in that direction, more power to her.
Here's another explanation from the book, about the phrase "gung-ho." I compare it to the entry from Harry Oliver's Bee's Knees and Barmy Armies, John Blake Publishing, Ltd, 2008.
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Oliver, page 15: "Meaning very eager, zealous, or enthusiastic, a 'gung ho' approach is something we tend to consider rather bullish and unwise. The adjective derives from the Chinese kung ho, meaning to work together, and during the Second World War it was embraced by United States Marines and even became the motto of 'Carlson's Raiders,' the nickname for a guerrilla unit of soldiers serving in the Pacific region under General Evans Carlson. The phrase spread throughout the Marines, and into wider American society with the release in 1943 of the war film Gung Ho!, which told the story of Carlson's Raiders. It was Carlson's sometimes irresponsible and careless approach that led to the phrase being used ironically and negatively. |
Orlova, page 138: "If we know anything about the U.S. Marines, we know that they're extremely gung ho. Do we know what gung ho is, though?" It's a Chinese phrase meaning "Work in Harmony," and though that may sound vaguely Maoist, the Marines got it from pre-Communist China, during that country's 1937 resistance campaign against the Japanese. Brigadier General Evans F. Carlson was stationed in the mountains of north China so that he could observe Chinese guerrilla action against the Japanese firsthand. He heard the slogan shouted out by Chinese fighters and was impressed by its apparent galvanizing effect on the Chinese troops. He dug a little deeper and found out what it meant. Later Carlson was placed in charge of the Second Marine Raider Battalion during World War II. He chose gung ho as both the unit's slogan and his personal leadership philosophy. Years later he explained the Chinese term he had adopted as follows: "Gung Ho! To Work in Harmony! Our goal: To create and perfect a cohesive, smooth-functioning team, which by virtue of its harmony of action, unity of purpose, and its invincible determination, will be able to out-point the enemy on every count." In contemporary usage, gung ho has come to mean "zealous and extremely energetic." |
Oliver mentions the 1943 film about Carson's Raiders, which Orlova's entry does not. However, she provides more detail about the Raiders, and ties their activities to the year 1937 (before World War II began in Asia.) Thus, I consider her explanation superior.
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