About the book
A hundred and forty-five everyday English words that still have a god, a myth or a mistake inside them — and, for every one, the evidence. Panic is Pan. Cereal is Ceres. Saturday is the one day of the week where the translators gave up. A clue is the ball of thread Ariadne handed Theseus. Hell means the covered place, and shares a root with the surname of a roofer.
What separates this from the genre is the rule it was built on: an entry appears only if two independent authorities support it and at least one is a locatable entry in a dictionary of etymology. Not a passing mention — an entry, quoted so you can check it. Where the authorities disagree, both readings are printed. Where the origin is unknown, the book says unknown. And it lists the words it had to leave out, by name, with the reason.
