Michael Quinion

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Michael Quinion in his office
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Michael Quinion in his office

Michael Quinion is a British etymologist and writer. He is known as the author and creator of World Wide Words, a site that documents the meaning and derivation of various colloquial words and phrases in the English language. He has also contributed extensively to the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of New Words, as well as having written Ologies and Isms (a 2002 dictionary of affixes) and Port Out, Starboard Home: And Other Language Myths (2004), published in the US as "Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins".