Vandals, Scapegoats, and Bootleggers: The Curious Origins of Everyday Words

Discover the fascinating backstories of 400 words

The English language is anything but boring! Vandals, Scapegoats and Bootleggers takes you on an etymological journey through history, myth, religion, war, sports, literature, and beyond to uncover how common expressions came to be. In quick yet captivating entries, you’ll find the intriguing details, bizarre twists, forgotten characters, and curious coincidences that shaped the conversations we have every day.

• Boycott was the surname of a despised nineteenth-century landlord shunned into exile by his entire town

• A deadline was the fatal boundary drawn around military prisons during the Civil War

• The designer of the bikini named it for the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands to ride the publicity wave of the headline-making nuclear tests there

• Turncoat began with the nervous Duke of Saxony creating a reversible coat so he could safely walk between French and English armies warring on his land

With tales that are weird, witty, and wonderfully unexpected, Vandals, Scapegoats, and Bootleggers reveals that even seemingly simple words have a story to tell.