Mind your language | 11 November 2006

My husband has been trying to interest me in the architecture of the stations on the Jubilee line on the London Underground. Some of them — Westminster and Canary Wharf — are indeed impressive in an overpowering way. The line, before its extension eastward from Green Park, was named after the celebration of the Queen’s 25th anniversary on the throne, and I had, I suppose, always thought jubilees were something to do with jubilation. But, as with all misapprehensions, only when it was pointed out to me was this one exploded.

John Ayto set off the explosives in Word Origins (A&C Black, £12.99), his excellent ramble through unlikely etymologies. I’ve enjoyed it so much, discovering that increment has no connection with excrement and that haggis is a word derived from French, that even my strong pedantic urge quavers in pointing out a tiny literal error in the book. But it is of such a curious kind that I can’t resist.