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Mark Forsyth

Mark Forsyth Quotes

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Famous Mark Forsyth Quotes

“If Jupiter was in the ascendant when you were born, you are of a jovial disposition; and if you're not jovial but miserable and saturnine that's a disaster, because a disaster is a dis-astro, or misplaced planet. Disaster is Latin for ill-starred. The fault, as Shakespeare put it, is not in our stars; but the language is.”

LanguageStarsAstrologyShakespeare
Book:The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language
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“The standard modern measurement for inebriation is the Ose system. This has been considerably developed over the years, but the common medical consensus currently has jocose, verbose, morose, bellicose, lachrymose, comatose, adios. This is a workable but incomplete system, as it fails to take in otiose (meaning impractical) which comes just after jocose. Nor does it have grandiose preceding bellicose. And how they managed to miss out globose (amorphous or formless) before comatose is beyond me.”

LanguageEnglishDrunkness
Book:The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language
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“Wouldst like to con a glimmer with me this early black?’, which he [Cab Calloway] helpfully explains as ‘the proper way to ask a young lady to go to the movies’. It should be noted here, that if the object of your affections replies ‘Kill me’, they are not requesting to be euthanatised and you should not actually murder them. Kill me is merely the Cab Calloway way of saying ‘Show me a good time’ and is the best response you could have hoped for. Jive was rather confusing in this way.”

JiveCab CallowayHepster
Book:The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language
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“The problem with the alphabet is that it bears no relation to anything at all, and when words are arranged alphabetically they are uselessly separated. In the OED, for example, aardvarks are 19 volumes away from the zoo, yachts are 18 volumes from the beach, and wine is 17 volumes from the nearest corkscrew.”

ProblemExampleBearsRelationWineBeachVolumeAlphabetZoosYacht
Book:The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language
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“If you are to use Alexander Graham Bell’s product, which is to say the blower, you should, in all courtesy, use it as he would have wished; and Dr Bell insisted that all phone calls should begin with the words ‘Ahoy, ahoy’. Nobody knows why he insisted this – he had no connection to the navy – but insist he did and started every phone call that way. Nobody else did, and it was at the suggestion of his great rival Edison that people took to saying ‘Hello’. This seems unfair.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWayShouldUseSeemsProductsConnectionsPhonesBellsUnfairDrsSuggestionsHelloNavyRivalsCourtesyNobody KnowsPhone CallsSaying HelloGraham Bell
Book:Mark Forysth's Gemel Edition: The Etymologicon and The Horologicon ebook bundle
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“But Shakespeare never drank coffee. Nor did Julius Caesar, or Socrates. Alexander the Great conquered half the world without even a café latte to perk him up. The pyramids were designed and constructed without a whiff of a sniff of caffeine. Coffee was introduced to Europe only in 1615. The achievements of antiquity are quite enough to cow the modern human, but when you realize that they did it all without caffeine it becomes almost unbearable.”

WorldHumansEnoughRealizingHalfModernAchievementEuropeCoffeeCowsUnbearableDrankPyramidsAntiquityCaffeinePerksJuliusLattes
Book:The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language
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