it's been a while since I've read any Blount. I'd forgotten how charming and amusing he is. This is a great book to keep around for little dips now and then. Keep a copy with other quick-snippet reads like The Straight Dope or the Uncle John's Readers.
For anyone who seriously enjoys using words, this is a marvelous book. A collection of mini-essays about words and phrases that have struck Blount's fancy. If there's a serious point to the book, it's one that I'm whole-heartedly in favor of: A language loses "something" when its speakers cease to c...
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Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory
Under a multitude of keywords, Blount expounds and kids around about words and language. He certainly has a vivid way of expressing himself, and an eye for good (or bad) quotations from the newspapers. Some of it is pet-peevish, but mostly not. He has a particular preoccupation with how words sound,...
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