Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: Biting the Wax Tadpole

Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic by Elizabeth Little 2007

This is a hilarious look at some of the many languages of the world in all of their weird and wonderful glory. A self-confessed language fanatic, Elizabeth Little describes how her obsession began in her high school Latin class. It gave ‘travel’ a whole new meaning for her—not everyone can go world traveling, but everyone can go “word traveling”! She found that grammar can be fascinating, etymology is like a mini history lesson for each word, and perfect pronunciation is definitely more important for some languages than for others. Little’s references to bad translations are especially funny. The title, ‘biting the wax tadpole’, is the literal translation of the phonetic characters used to spell Coca Cola in Chinese… If you like books that take a closer look at how we use (or don’t use) words, this one will teach you a thing or two, and get you laughing at the same time!