The Whatchamacallit: Those Everyday Objects You Just Can't Name (And Things You Think You Know About, but Don't)

I love quirky words. Just wish I could remember all of them as I have about 10 dictionary's with odd words.

This book was nice, but has room for improvement. I found it a bit wordy and I would have liked to see more pronunciations for more of the words. It started with one item, but then would go off on related things and sometimes leave me a bit confused. I would have liked to see a bit more focus on the words and less of the history of the item and related words. Also, sometimes the pictures that go with the word didn't show exactly what part the word was referring. My last problem is that the words are things I encounter, but I doubt I'd need to name them. Also, I doubt I'll remember the words anyway since they tend to be longer and odd words.I still found it an interesting read. It also has a nice index for reference, so that should make it useful. I would still recommend it, but it may not be my first recommendation.

I had been looking to purchase the book for a while and finally saw a great deal for this book on Amazon. Book arrived in a timely manner and was exactly what I was looking for.

I didn't find this as interesting as I had hoped, as it turned out, I knew about half of what is included.

Way too much information that is uninteresting and often so sparsely explained that you still don't have a good idea of what they are talking about. This came out in about 2009 but some facts seem like they haven't been updated since about 1970. Some data seems to just be wrong but we weren't interested enough to research it more. Your time is worth more than what is offered by this book.

Cute, clever and very informative. This will be a book that can be used to impress your friends at parties or family circles..

Being a linguistics nerd, I was really looking forward to reading this book and learning about the names for things that we use and can't name, along with learning the history behind the word development. The authors did that sparingly throughout the book, while sometimes descending into tangents filled with other jargon that is not necessarily known to those outside the field (crozier, anyone?).The volume is slight, clocking in at 200 pages, along with illustrations and lots of wasted space that could have been filled with other words that are on the tip of the tongue but oft forgot. Also, to any well read person, a lot of these words were already known, and I would have preferred them to go a more obscure route than they did.

As the authors themselves suggest, this is a pleasant little bathroom read, which I have turned to in odd moments over the last three years. Entries often lead to background information- history, similar or parallel terms, uses, or some random story associated with the term. Part of the pleasure of such a book is that you don't know what you will learn next. People (like myself) who like to channel surf may find this their reading equivalent.One of the surprising things I should have learned in the course of Bible study, but only learned from this volume, was that the word "jot" in the Matthew 5:18 ("Not a jot or tittle of the Law will pass away") is the Greek word for the letter "iota." This came into English as jot, the I rendered as J. The dot over the small-case I is a "tittle," the subject of the entry.There are many helpful illustrations, particularly of entries so-named, "Achenes" (strawberry seeds), "Dredger" (can with perforated top for sprinkling powers), "Samara" (Maple seed), "Zills" (finger cymbals), etc. Many others are just there, but make a positive contribution.My one disappointment, more with me than the book, is that I have retained so little; perhaps a quarter of the hundred or so. One reason is that one comes across many of these entities so seldom (I don't use shoelaces so rarely encounter an aglet), or I have gotten this far through life without being conscious of many of them and they recede into oblivion. Still, it is a worthwhile read, and since our encyclopedia have become digitized and there is no random volume to just page through, this present book gives you more than a dictionary, and less than a ponderous encyclopedia.

I didn't know THAT ... You learn quite a bit, some of it is quite suprising and really funny ... It's for everybody