This book looks like a lot of fun. An excerpt (emphasis added):
"Etymology for its own sake is of little importance, even if it has
curiosity value … the chief difficulty is that there can be no
'true' or 'original' meaning since human language stretches back too
far." We have to agree with the latter — but the former seems
absurd.
It's worth asking at this point why etymology is so seductive. For
most people it represents their first (and frequently only)
encounter with linguistics. As we know, words are at once
completely prosaic — we use them every day, mostly without thinking
— and rather mysterious. As a result it's natural to ask where they
come from. We weave stories around their origin, both patently
false ("lol" and "golf") and more plausible ("decimate" and
"educate"). That curiosity shouldn't be dismissed: it's a knocking
at the door of linguistics. If they shut it in people's faces, the
guardians of knowledge about language risk closing off a route to
both enlightenment and wonder. As a result, people seek their
wonder elsewhere — in false accounts of how language works.
In any case, it isn't right to see etymology as some poor relation
to "proper" linguistics. An attempt to explain why the meanings of
words change is an attempt to explain how the mind works, how
language works, and how society works. Perhaps this is why it has
been deemed out of bounds.
Hat tip.
