Book Review: Sumanto Chattopadhyay’s ‘Stories of Words and Phrases’ 

Picture Credit: Deepa Kannan

Language is something we use without thinking—hundreds, even thousands of times a day. Yet how often do we actually stop to wonder where our everyday words come from? Sumanto Chattopadhyay, many know him as The English Nut—nudges us to do exactly that in his charming book Stories of Words and Phrases. 

With a mix of humour, curiosity, and a detective-like love for detail, he digs into the origins of 30 words and over 50 wonderfully odd phrases. It’s no surprise that two giants of the English language , Ruskin Bond and Shashi Tharoor, have happily endorsed it.

What makes this book such a delight is the way it balances research with storytelling. One moment you’re learning about the Persian roots of khaki, and the next you’re bumping into Shakespeare while tracing the real meaning behind crocodile tears. Chattopadhyay writes like a friendly guide who’s genuinely excited to show you around the quirky back alleys of the English language. More than once, I found myself smiling and thinking, Wait, how did I never know this before?

Among all the entries, one word really stayed with me: Sinister. Today it sounds dark and threatening—thanks, in part, to movies and villains with dramatic lighting. But long ago, sinister simply meant “left” or “left-handed.” Many cultures treated left-handedness as unlucky or somehow “not proper,” and this old bias ran so deep that countless children were forced to switch to their right hand in school.

This hit close to home. My mother-in-law is naturally left-handed, but as a child she was made to write with her right hand. Even now, she writes right-handed but uses her left hand instinctively for nearly everything else. And she’s not the only one—an uncle of ours went through something similar. He was discouraged from writing with his left hand, yet grew into a terrific athlete: left-handed in table tennis and badminton, left-handed as a cricket bowler, but right-handed when he batted. Our limbs, it seems, don’t always listen to social pressure.

Even in professional sports, handedness can be surprisingly fluid. Sourav Ganguly, for instance, is naturally right-handed, yet he became one of cricket’s most famous left-handed batsmen. The reason was simple: he grew up copying his older brother, Snehashish Ganguly, who batted left-handed. What began as imitation soon felt natural, and coaches encouraged him to continue. So, while he still bowled and wrote with his right hand, his batting flourished from the opposite side—proof that handedness, like words, can have unexpected origins.

For a group that makes up only around 10% of the world’s population, left-handers have produced some remarkably influential figures. As Stories of Words and Phrases points out, personalities like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Ratan Tata, Amitabh Bachchan, and Mother Teresa are all left-handed. Suddenly, what was once viewed as “sinister” starts to feel rather special.

And that is what I loved most about this book. It turns ordinary words into tiny portals with windows into history, culture, and human behaviour. Whether it’s an idiom that “sounds Greek to us,” a phrase that “gets our goat,” or a word we utter without a second thought, Chattopadhyay uncovers stories that are surprising, funny, and quietly enlightening.

For language lovers, trivia fans, or simply anyone curious about the quirks of communication, Stories of Words and Phrases is a treat. It educates without ever feeling heavy, and entertains without ever losing its heart. To borrow a classic line, “It’s elementary, my dear Watson”, a book that reminds us that even the simplest words carry journeys of their own before they reach our tongues.