The book by Vitaly Babenko, a writer, head of the journalism department at the Institute of Journalism and Literary Creativity, but also a teacher of etymology, talks about the most ordinary words. When using them, we do not think about the fact that the history of each word is full of paradoxes. It is these stories that make up the book - not a dictionary, not a scientific study, but a collection of unheard stories about heard words. The author, like a detective, goes from solution to solution. Well, what seems surprising about the words “bus”, “time”, “sky”, “career” and others that are described in the book? And they, as it turns out, have a very intricate origin. In many cases, the way a word is formed, changes in original meaning, strange combinations of components, surprising connections with other words can make you smile. This is exactly what the author is counting on: the reader’s joy from meeting “unfamiliar acquaintances”—everyday words.