Blount begins his tale with a visit to the Thalia, an upper-west-side Manhattan theater where Duck Soup was being shown in a matinee. Kids were in the audience, young ones, 6, 7 years old. Their reaction was to be amazed. My personal experience with kids and the Marx Brothers was not so fortunate. I...
recently read a review that claimed this book was a scene-by-scene look at the classic Marx Bros. movie Duck Soup (1933). First of all, that reviewer must have jumped to that conclusion and written the review before reading the actual book because his statement couldn't be further from the truth. Ha...
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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