In the constellation of Merriam-Webster books, our favorite is Webster's Word Histories (1989). On matters of current usage, the thoroughly modern lexicographer must choose between the Scylla of appearing insensitive to historically disadvantaged subgroups of English speakers by characterizing their preferred way of speaking as "substandard" and the Charybdis of caving in and calling anything that large numbers of people frequently say or write "standard." But freed of the burden of making such judgments, the Merriam-Webster savants demonstrate a remarkable aptitude for researching and reporting etymologies--word histories.

In Webster's Word Histories, you can read about the animal the Canary Islands were named after, the medieval game from which the word "rigmarole" originates, and the ancient episode of ethnic cleansing remembered by the word "shibboleth." For people who love words, this is fascinating material, and every now and then an etymology proves to be startlingly intuitive. For example, we knew that "atonement" implied penance done to reconcile oneself with another (person or spiritual being) following a rift attributable to one's own fault. But we wouldn't have imagined that it began its career in English as a simple two-word phrase: "at onement."