Awwwww. Not to hurt your feelings, but, yes, you are a dikdik. You feature in the title of my newest book.

WARNING!

AUTHOR TESTIMONIAL AHEAD!

MAY SHOW PARTIALITY!

Jan. 3, 2011

“Mr Casselman,
I wanted to write to thank you for your thoroughly enjoyable [new] book. By background, I am a technologist practicing the somewhat arcane crafts of Information Security.” - - - David Gamey, Canada

Where does a dobdob meet a dikdik?

In only one place on earth - in a Bill Casselman word book!

Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik is available as a paperback or a downloadable e-book.

What is a dobdob? Buy the book to find out. It’s 272 pages of amusing, surprising and informative word lore by the world’s funniest etymologist.

Bill has written 12 books on language, plus millions of words in newspapers and magazines and this is a book of all-new word stories, 92% of the word lore and word humor available only in this book.

Says author Casselman, blushing modestly and speaking with all due lack of humility, “This really is my best writing about language and verbal origins in 50 years of sharing etymology and the joy of word lore with readers. And it's my wittiest, funniest, laugh-out-loud book.”

Short preview samples of Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik are given below. To obtain links to online book merchants all over the world where you can buy my new book now by pre-ordering it, click on the booksellers link at the bottom of this page. My new book will be immediately available online and in bookstores all over the world by late October or early November, 2010.

Independent Book Review

from Falcata Times:

BOOK BLURB:

Were you taught in school that the English language has no rhyme for the word 'orange'? What about 'month', 'silver', or 'purple'? No rhymes for those either? Bill Casselman says poppycock! Digging into the dim recesses of the English language, he shows that there are valid rhyming words for all of these. Along the way, he explores the highways and byways of English - the world's wackiest language. English rejoices in a teeming trove of lexical gems borrowed from almost every language on Earth. Casselman expands his readers' vocabulary, from the sublime to the ridiculous, reveling in odd, obscure words and in amusing anecdotes about familiar phrases (Do you know the origin of 'For the love of Mike'?) Here's the perfect book to celebrate the wonders, the complexities, and the absurdities of our Mother Tongue. By the way, the word 'sporange' rhymes with orange. It's a small capsule or receptacle that holds spores in certain species of mold.


REVIEW:

Whether you have a passing interest in the origin of words and phrases or are a scrabble nut or writer this book is one that will give you a whole new understanding of some of the languages nuances as well as some interesting factual trivia that could save your bacon in a pub quiz or just to impress that know it all in your life.

It’s definitely a quirky title and one that gives you a fun understanding of some of the changes in modern language. Add to this the authoritative as well as respectful tone of the Bill to guide you through the shark infested lexicon world and you know that its going to be a book that will be worth thumbing through a good few times. Beautifully presented this book is definitely something that will appeal to a great many readers as well as a great gift for that English loving person in your life.

Samples from My New Book:

Original Casselman humour! Available Nowhere Else! 92% of the word fun in this book is available only in this new book, Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik.

samples ………….

I delight in the joy of odd bird names:

“Another ploy of the wanton bird-namer is an obscure Latinate adjective prefixed to a common name: the cinereous conebill, the striolated bunting, the beryl-spangled tanager. . .

Then come bird names of a semantic hint that is embarrassing, bird names that sound like congenital malformations of one’s sexual apparatus, for example: dickcissel. It is so close to sissy dick that it might be a homophobic taunt from a school playground.

How about an authentic bird name such as the Sooty Boubou? Sooty Boubou. Sounds like something that must be cured by an injection of antibiotics, after being contracted during an unwise moment of carnality in a Nairobi outhouse. As for the etiology of pink-footed puffback and black-headed gonolek, only a Turkish urologist treating camel-herders could say for sure.”

Learn New Word Terms

We’ve all heard and seen this kind of expression: Un-freaking-believable! Abso-bloody-lutely! Well, la-de-goldern-da! Any-old-way.

What is that construction called? Tmesis. By the way, both the /t/ and the /m/ are pronounced in modern English, to give T-MEE-sis.

You’ll also find out all about the most common sound in the whole English language. You use it hundreds of times every day and I’ll bet you can’t even name it? It’s a schwa. Find out all about the common but lowly schwa in my new book.

From ancient Egypt to modern Texas

Even the simplest American place names have fascinating word stories to tell.

“Consider Adobe Wells, Texas. Sure, we all know adobe is a kind of brick, a simple brick of fine alluvial clay whose oven is the sun and whose substance is straw mixed with sun-dried earth.

The warm tawny brown of the yellow playa clay anchors adobe buildings to their desert stands so naturally that well-sited adobe habitations seem upstarts from the very earth they sit upon. But what an ancient word adobe is! This old stalwart root is 5,000 years old, found in Egyptian hieroglyphics on the walls of Pharaonic tombs.

Spanish adopted it directly from Arabic, al-toob ‘the brick’ pronounced adoub. Arab speakers heard it from North African speakers of Coptic where it was toeb, and Coptic took it or shared it with /t.b/ its Egyptian hieroglyphic transliteration. Nowadays in the southwest you can hear Americans ask about a wall, “That dobie?” Yep.

Thousands of Arabic words entered Spanish after the Moorish conquest of Spain, an easy takeover hardly worthy of the term conquest. Begun with an invasion in C.E. 710, the Arabic rule of Spain ended around C.E. 1250, but not technically until the last Moorish king surrendered to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in the very year that Columbus set sail, 1492. Whatever its precise dates, this Moorish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula was 500 years of solid influence, contributing new Arabic-based Spanish place names to Hispanic maps and adding a huge camel saddle of Arabic words to the Spanish word stable; words that later crossed the Atlantic and came to Mexico and Central America with the conquistadores and priests and soldiers of the line who brought this Arabic-spiced Spanish to their new colonies; words that then migrated north to the United States and stayed. Adobe Wells, evidence of a word trip all the way from ancient Egypt to modern-day Texas!”

Dummies, Beware!

With the cudgel of literacy, I attack illiterate mouth-breathers and word-lorn dummies in my new book Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik. Here’s a wee taste of my list of reasons to increase one’s verbal knowledge:

“Why should you expand your vocabulary? Should we not all speak in glum monosyllables like contestants on reality television programs busily seeing who can load the most bat guano into a banana leaf and then place it on their parole officer’s head? Who needs words, really? Should we take our cues about how we speak English from sullen, letterless thugs out on a day pass? Probably not. . .

The most recent lifelong studies of childhood language acquisition show us that children with large vocabularies do best throughout their schooling. That is scientific fact. The frowsy school yoyos who snort crack in the boys’ toilet at recess and have a vocabulary of fifty monosyllables may not be the best guides to a life of accomplishment.”

New Fart Names

My essay on needed words of a flatulent nature drew this response from a new reader:

Recent E-Mail

Dear Mr. Casselman -

This is just to thank you for the ‘2 New Fart Words.” I haven’t laughed that hard for a long time. I am forwarding them to all my friends so that they too can have a great day.

Fartastic!

A. Banerjee

Bill Casselman replies:

Although I don't like to toot my own horn, I enjoyed writing my brief fartological treatise. If you'd like a laugh, check it out by buying my new book, the only place you can find this funny essay.

Want more samples? Amazon.com lets you read the first six pages of my new book, the entire table of contents, the index, the preface, and the conclusion. Just click below and then on the Amazon page click under the picture of the book's cover.

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Dobdob-Meets-Dikdik-Weirdest/dp/1440506361/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283890298&sr=1-1

Various, Glowing Reviews from Readers

"I admit it: I'm a word nerd. I love words: weird words, long words, obscure words, funny words.  This book is right up my alley.  With chapters like "Nautical Words," "Creepy Words," and "Edible Words," I have enjoyed every page of this book. 

And the author has quite a way with words, so I have found myself rereading many sentences in this book and slowing my progress through it. 

My current favorite sentence is found in a discussion of dog hybrid breed names: "What a revolting concatenation of cutesiness and smarmy nomenclatorial treacle parading under the name of canine hybrid breed names" (19).

I'm sure I'll have another favorite sentence in a day or two. 

This book is just that good and just that entertaining."

 

Author Bill Casselman replies: "Thanks, Jenni!"

Just a reminder that this book contains my ALL-NEW word esssays, none of which are available anywhere else in print or online.

----------------------------------------

A Great New Review of My Latest Book!

 

October 26, 2011

Welcome to the Enchanted Forest

By WB Johnston

This review is about Bill Casselman’s latest e-book about words: Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik: A Word Lover’s Guide to the Weirdest, Wackiest, and Wonkiest Lexical Gems (Kindle Edition)

 

“Wade Davis, lately of National Geographic, once described each living language as “an old-growth forest of the human spirit.” Once you decide to enter the kleptomaniacal woods of our mother tongue, what you need is more than a tour guide. This is no Disney-fied ‘keep-your-hands-inside-the-car-at all-times’, point A to point B, clear-cutting mining of language. You, here, are in the hands of Sir William of Cassel, a genuine shaman modestly posing as a simple lover of words.

In the best of the spiritual tradition, Bill is the shape-shifter who constantly leads you to all the places you need to find in your soul. Every page is a new country, an invitation to an excursion into the wonderland of rich connections with the myriad of sources of what so often we unthinkingly wield as a prosaic tool.

Pay absolutely no attention to anyone who tells you that this book is anything but pure gold. It’s simply not true, sadly, that all the world loves a lover. Particularly someone whose love is so boundless.

But Sir William is fearless. You don’t earn your keep as a medicine man if you have a thin skin. While I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could walk away from this book unmoved by its wit, its wisdom and the beautiful transparency by which the author celebrates the glorious romp of our almost unlimited linguistic exuberance, I have to sadly conclude that once in a while, you do meet someone who can’t see the forest for the trees, eh?

Read this book. Leave it on the sofa instead of the $%#!*$% TV remote. Maybe someone you care about will pick it up, even just for a moment, and fall in love with their heritage?

Leave it on your desk at work and trust that someone will riffle through it when you are out at lunch. Shamans are magicians of the highest order. The work of their hands and hearts is game-changing. Or, hey, put it on your Kindle and just feel comforted that you can wander back out into the forest with Bill even in the middle of a boring lecture.

Enjoy.”

 

Casselman replies: Thank you so much, Dr. J., for the kudos.

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Cindy Lapeña on her blog "Creativity Unlimited" of July 19 ,2011, writes:

Posted by mimrlith in 365 Things to Look Forward to.
Tags: 365 things to look forward to, books, reading
trackback

19. Starting a book

To a certified bibliophile like me, a.k.a. bookworm, one of the most exciting things to look forward to is to start reading a new book. In fact, sometimes the prospect of starting to read a new book is so exciting that I have to hurry to finish the book I am currently reading, just so I can start a new one.

If there’s one thing I can’t resist, it’s a book, especially if it promises to be a good one. Of course there are certain books I just won’t touch or be seen with, but at the risk of being hung by my thumbs by fans of such literature, I will not mention any genres in particular. . .

Seeing a book with a title that totally captivates me, like Where a Dobdob meets a Dikdik (yes, that is a book title!) has me so worked up, I just can’t wait to dive in. I imagine all sorts of deliciously fancifully outrageous words with a title like that. Is it obvious? I just love books on words. You won’t believe how many dictionaries I own. Or books on lexical oddities and other lexical explorations. Yes, I am a logophile of sorts. I love the new words I pick up from new books. I relish finding out the meanings of all manner of words and phrases and expressions. What could be more fun?"

(Replies author Bill Casselman: Please scroll back up and click to link to a free seven-page preview of my new book, Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik.

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Sample My Newest Book. Click Below.

Jan. 3, 2011

“Mr Casselman,
I wanted to write to thank you for your thoroughly enjoyable [new] book. By background, I am a technologist practicing the somewhat arcane crafts of Information Security.”  

David Gamey, Canada

Testimonial Email

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Dear Mr. Casselman,
A search for the origins of an improbable-looking word, paraprosdokian, led me to the first piece of your prose I have had the pleasure of reading, "The Bogus Word Paraprosdokian & Lazy Con Artists of Academe." I have just placed an order for Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik, Canadian Words & Sayings, and As The Canoe Tips, and will add more of your titles as I finish these.

I have just retired from a 40-plus year career in book publishing, the last thirty years spent as director/editor of a number of university presses, attempting to sort the genuine writers from the "Lazy Con Artists of Academe." Sad to say, the latter have so over-bred the former that I could no longer see the rare gem in the avalanches of offal that daily swamped my office and desk. I visited your website and spent far too long there; it was a pleasure to meet a real writer through his work.

. . . I revisited the paraprosdokian page, and have finally quit laughing again at “Casselman's Conclusion.” You were not unkind to the "profligate prof-lets." During my years as an acquisitions editor, in rejection letters I often quoted Prof. Moses Hadas, classicist at Columbia University, who wrote a young scholar in response to having been sent the prof-let's first book, "Thank you for sending me your book. I will waste no time reading it."

I know I will enjoy your books. Keep up the good work.

Thank you,
Luther Wilson
Director (Retired)

University of New Mexico Press, among others

 

Nov. 15, 2010: On Twitter, Doug O'Neill, a happy buyer of my new Dobdob book, writes, "Even funnier flipping through it a second time around."

Thanks, Doug!

Below is a link to international online booksellers' e-addresses, from whom you may pre-order my new book now, either as a paperback or as an e-book download. Its international publication date is mid-October, 2010.

Click here for worldwide booksellers page.

Any comments, additional word lore or book orders?

Please email me at wordguy@shaw.ca

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