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The Horologicon

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About this listen

The Horologicon - which means 'a book of things appropriate to each hour' - follows a day in the life of unusual, beautiful, and forgotten English words. From the moment you wake to the second your head hits the pillow, there's a cornucopia of hidden words ready for every aspect of your day.

Do you tend to lie in bed before dawn worrying? Then you have the Old English ailment of uhtceare. Uhtceare can lead on to dysania (inability to get out of bed) and other zwoddery problems, which many have suffered but few can name.

From encounters with office ultracrepidarians, lunchtime scamblers, and six o'clock sturmovschinas to the post-work joys of thelyphthoric grinagogs and nimtopsical nympholepsy, Mark Forsyth, author of the Sunday Times number one best seller The Etymologicon, unearths words that you didn't even know you needed. From antejentacular to bedward by way of nuncheon, at last you can say, with utter accuracy, exactly what you mean.

©2012 Mark Forsyth (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Political Science Politics & Government United States World Funny Thought-Provoking Witty
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Would you listen to The Horologicon again? Why?

I would, because its very funny and full of strange facts about the history of English words. It is an entertaining listen for someone who loves learning and likes a chuckle whilst doing so.

What did you like best about this story?

how everything relates to each other. the circle of learning idea is a brilliant one. the end takes you right back to the beginning making it easy and very temping to re-listen straight away.

What about Simon Shepherd’s performance did you like?

he was easy to listen to and had a charming way of dishing out the information to the listener.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me laugh. I had to hold back large smiles when walking in public though, so as not to make someone thing I was crazy.

Any additional comments?

This is a great book for people who love learning new things and new words too.

amusing and informative, great combination

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A brilliant way of introducing us to so many beautiful words and phrases! My copy skipped a few times while listening to it on my phone so not sure if there was a problem with the download but I still loved every second!

Wonderfully done!

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What made the experience of listening to The Horologicon the most enjoyable?

I loved the hour-by-hour description of humdrum modern life in the context of archaic words, and indeed habits, that never quite lasted the test of time. Dry witty delivery too.

Any additional comments?

The only slight oddity is I don't think the editing has been brilliantly done. There are times where Shepherd restarts a sentence clearly thinking the editing team would cut out the version where he hesitated but in fact where the listener... but in fact where the listener experiences a weird duplicate sentence.

Fabulous marriage of jolly dry wit & etymology

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was not expecting such a brilliant book and such a brilliant reader, yet got blessed by both! a must buy indeed, will relisten to it for sure now!

A surprise

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I think the best way I can describe this is 'patchy'. While there are a fair number of genuinely funny and/or interesting sections, it gets bogged down at times when MF focuses on something for far too long. It's also not as good a recording. Especially towards the end the audio needs editing, as there a quite a few repeated lines.

Not as good as the Etymologican

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