Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, ... With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory

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By: Roy Blount Jr.
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EDITORIAL REVIEW



Ali G: How many words does you know?



Noam Chomsky: Normally, humans, by maturity, have tens of thousands of them.



Ali G: What is some of 'em?

—Da Ali G Show
 
Did you know that both mammal and matter derive from baby talk? Have you noticed how wince makes you wince? Ever wonder why so many h-words have to do with breath?
 
Roy Blount Jr. certainly has, and after forty years of making a living using words in every medium, print or electronic, except greeting cards, he still can’t get over his ABCs. In Alphabet Juice, he celebrates the electricity, the juju, the sonic and kinetic energies, of letters and their combinations. Blount does not prescribe proper English. The franchise he claims is “over the counter.”

Three and a half centuries ago, Thomas Blount produced Blount’s Glossographia, the first dictionary to explore derivations of English words. This Blount’s Glossographia takes that pursuit to other levels, from Proto-Indo-European roots to your epiglottis. It rejects the standard linguistic notion that the connection between words and their meanings is “arbitrary.” Even the word arbitrary is shown to be no more arbitrary, at its root, than go-to guy or crackerjack. From sources as venerable as the OED (in which Blount finds an inconsistency, at whisk) and as fresh as Urbandictionary.com (to which Blount has contributed the number-one definition of alligator arm), and especially from the author’s own wide-ranging experience, Alphabet Juice derives an organic take on language that is unlike, and more fun than, any other.


PRODUCT DETAILS

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub. Date: 14th October 2008
Catalog: Book
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Pages: 384
Ean: 9780374103699
Isbn: 0374103690

ABOUT THIS BOOK

USER REVIEWS

juice it up
~ Written on Nov 8, 2009. out of users found this review helpful.

An interesting compilation, with Blount's own take and opinions (sometimes) on his selected words and phrases, and an expansion on each letter of the alphabet. It's certainly not a novel, but is OK as a bathroom reader or casual pick-up. For word freaks it's another book for their library, and the takes and origins and etomology Blount pursues are interesting and sometimes intrigueing. Certainly not an instructional or style book, but fun and informative if you like words, phrases, applications, exceptions, and down-to-earth commentary on usage.

Blount hopes the reader will page through the self-contained cross-references he uses to help know the yesses and no's (yeas and nays?) of sentence parts, like commas, dashes, colons, stuff like that. His intention is to take some of the unnecessary fluff out of word-use and sense, and he does that pretty well. Remove the pompous.

Pretty cool.

Alphabet Juice
~ Written on Nov 4, 2009. 1 out of 1 users found this review helpful.

For anyone who enjoys examining the curiosities of the English language, this is a good choice for your library. It is not a main course novel; it is dessert. A wordsmith's delight. Pick it up any time you have a spare moment, open it at random, and get a laugh out of the wit and wisdom of Roy Blount Jr.

Mediocre Bathroom Book
~ Written on Oct 27, 2009. out of users found this review helpful.

The audiobook is performed quite well. However, the content is merely ho-hum. The author goes through the alphabet, meandering on word meanings, sounds and other random tidbits. A few bits are interesting. Some may be interesting to a certain audience. Others, are just plain boring. As a printed book, this would probably go over better as something sitting in the bathroom. Every section small word discussion stands on its own. However, even in print, the content is rather pedestrian, being neither very scholarly, nor very accessible to anyone but grammar nerds.

Not a good Kindle book
~ Written on Oct 22, 2009. out of users found this review helpful.

A great read, but another poorly translated book for the Kindle. This book is arranged like a dictionary, lots of individual listing set down alphabetically. However, the navigation is not set up to jump from topic to topic (or thumbed)by the author but read like a book. There's not even a linked TOC in the front.

This is not a Kindle quality book.

Useless Drivel
~ Written on Oct 20, 2009. out of 2 users found this review helpful.

Pointless nonsense.
I expected some meandering from Blount. However, some books, like thoughts, are best kept to one's self.
It is very possible that I am not qualified to critique literature of any type.
But in this case, I must.
"I want my money back".

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