This course is a guided tour through the vocabulary of English, one of the largest and most varied in any of the world's languages. Among the questions it will address are: Why does English have so many (and so many different kinds of) words? Where did these words come from? Why do they mean what they mean? How are they put together? What do they tell us about history, social organization, culture and human psychology? One practical advantage of learning the answers to these and other questions is that it helps in vocabulary building and in demystifying specialized and technical terminology. The course is also a portal into linguistics, the study of the nature of language.