courant.com | Over The River, Through The Words
If there’s a word lover on your holiday shopping list - or you’re a word lover who’s listing from holiday shopping - consider one of these new books about language.

Your mischievous brother will savor “The Revenge of Anguished English” (St. Martin’s, $22.95), Richard Lederer’s latest collection of howlers from publications, including church bulletins (”Please welcome Pastor Don, a caring individual who loves hurting people”) and classified ads (”Nordic track $300. Hardly used. Call Chubby”).
Your grammar-minded aunt will enjoy “The Elements of Style Illustrated” (Penguin, $24.95), a new edition of the classic guide to usage that complements the sage advice of William Strunk and E.B. White with the vibrant illustrations of Maira Kalman, creator of many New Yorker covers.

If your teenage niece is, like, always using “like,” give her “The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style” (Houghton Mifflin, $19.95). In this hip compendium, she’ll discover two categories of the teenager’s “like”: the intrusive “like” (”He’s like a lab tech or something”) and the direct speech “like” (”So I’m like, `Let’s leave.’”). But she’ll also discover that the book’s editors are all like, “avoid both uses in writing.”

Does your nephew know that “seltzer” derives from the German village of Selters and that Argentina is named for the silver found there? He’ll discover the curiosities in “Another Word a Day” (Wiley, $14.95) Anu Garg’s second collection of daily offerings from his popular Word a Day website (wordsmith.org).

Does your politically savvy uncle know which presidents the Secret Service dubbed “Lancer,” “Eagle” and “Trailblazer”? Give him a dose of “Vitamin Q - A Temple of Trivia Lists and Curious Words” by Roddy Lumsden (Chambers, $14.00), and he’ll recognize John Kennedy, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively.

Your college-bound sister will appreciate the two-in-one American Heritage Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus (Houghton Mifflin, $20). The bottom of each page provides a batch (bunch, bundle, bevy) of synonyms for the entries above.

Need a stocking stuffer? Consider the American Heritage Abbreviations Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin, $6.95) and the Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (Oxford, $14.95). These handy pocket editions remind us that “Xmas” (to quote the former) is “compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together” (to quote Garrison Keillor in the latter).

Rob Kyff is a teacher and writer in West Hartford. Write to him in care of The Courant, Features Department, 285 Broad St., Hartford, CT 06115.