Bookworm

The first time someone called me a bookworm, I was a little girl, but I sensed that the word was pejorative.

The word was coined in 1599 by Ben Jonson in a now all-but-forgotten play called Cynthia's Revels. (Well, not completely forgotten; you can find it online.) The play was first performed in 1600 and published in 1601.

"Heart," remarks Hedon to Anaides about the scholar passing by, "was there ever so prosperous an invention thus unluckily perverted, and spoyl'd by a Whore-son, Book-worm, a Candle-waster?" (Cynthia's Revels, III, ii.)

The hyphen in Book-worm, denoting that two words are being coupled in an unusual way, had been dropped by 1855, when Mrs. Gatty finally used the word to refer not to a reader who was also a dreamer but to the anolium beetle and other pests who feed on tasty parts of books.

Here you will find a painting of a man-after-my-own-heart bookworm by Carl Spitzweg.

In passing, let me remark that the now-defunct hyphen in a compound word like bookworm or email causes editors to rip out their ever-greying hair, to hold the line unbecomingly, or to give way to the new while some measure of grace is still possible.

The Bookworm, by Carl Spitzweg, 1850. Held by Museum Georg Schäfer in Schweinfurt, Germany.

Uploaded by Iryna Harpy to Wikimedia Commons.