How do you begin to sort through the more than 3,500,000 place names found in the US? In Erin McKean’s Verbatim (Pimlico, £12.50) – the questions are almost more interesting than the answers in these essays from the eponymous language quarterly. Richard Lederer’s “The world according to student bloopers” is a must: its trail of the misheard, the misunderstood and the mistaken winds from ancient Egyptians in “dessert cultivated by irritation” to the “cure for rabbis” attributed to Pasteur. Dotted throughout the book are ambiguous scraps of writing. “The new British Library – sitting comfortably on enlarged piles” was spotted in New Scientist by a reader back in 1986.
More from New Scientist
Explore the latest news, articles and features
Mind
‘Remarkable’ discovery upends our understanding of how brains store memories
News
Humans
DNA reveals a society organised around women in pre-Roman Britain
News
Physics
Quantum entanglement is key to solving 250-year-old maths problem
News
Space
The most breathtaking photos of the total solar eclipse
News
Popular articles
Trending New Scientist articles