Good Words to You: An All-New Dictionary and Native's Guide to the Unknown American Language

Ciardi was a mind-bogglingly brilliant man. This comes across in this book. When I want to learn about any subject, I start with the words and their etymologies. I use this book as one of my references. Example: Albania - why is it called that? I find that 'alb' means 'white', so it tells me that the country has snow covered mountains. Then, no wonder the white of the egg is called 'albumen', the alps are called such, and the word 'album' means 'white tablet', or an albino is an albino. I guess an albatross must be white. Looking into word histories tells you about all sorts of things. Ciardi must have been working indefatigably on this subject, like Pliny and some of those other guys who did so much work for all of us.