Book Review
From John M. Formy-Duval, About.com Guest
Do not read this book straight (Straight. Derives from stretch. Things don't come straight, you have to get them straight) through from A (A stands for answer, ...adultery, highest grade) - and on that subject, Jerry Clower once said that the football coach at Mississippi State was making progress on keeping his players in school: 'He's got those boys making straight A's! Some of their B's are still a little crooked, but...' - through Z (Zoology. Pronounced zo-ology. Look at the letters. Count the o's.)
To know Jerry Clower is to appreciate Roy Blount's humor and his wisdom, which he expresses in what seems to be the most mundane and roundabout of ways. Yet, he quotes Finnegan's Wake, Socrates, Ezra Pound, and a host of others. As one reads hither and yon, one's appreciation for Blount grows. He believes, as he quotes Mark Twain in his essay "Fresh Mark" in his collection Long Time Leaving, that the "intensely right word" has an effect that is "physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt." This "dictionary" is a search for the right words in a highly entertaining and enlightening book.
Blount's introduction begins with a discussion of the meaning of the relationship between a word and its meaning. Scholars say the relationship is arbitrary, which leads to a discussion of the sound a pig makes. Is it oink (US), hroo (Russia), or grogner (French for grunt)? This leads to a discussion that brings the reader to spice, tang, delicacy, and sphincter. It really fits together rather well, a quite entertaining serious discussion of words. Although Blount has made a living for four decades "selling combinations of letters on the open market ... (it) does not entitle (him) to tell you how to write or talk." He then proceeds to tell the reader that an angel dies every time a word is used injudiciously. Our inability to use "lie" and "lay" and "I" and "me" correctly are especially grating.
Blount has a remarkable ability to bring in a wide range of possibilities for many of the words he explicates. Consider tragedy. It begins with Vice President Cheney shooting his friend then examines reporters' reactions, which lead to contretemps, disaster, mishap and misadventure, catastrophe, and calamity. He suggests that the better description of the "tragedy" is simply a "hunting accident, in which Mr. Cheney's friend narrowly escaped serious injury and which undoubtedly caused Mr. Cheney himself considerable distress." The point is that sometimes one word does not fit the situation and an appropriate group of words is the often the better "word."
Add this to your stable of reference books. It has just come out in trade paperback. Use it to determine when to use flack/flak, if/whether, the subjunctive tense, or I/me. You can learn an alternative meaning for hoo-hoos, or whether using a double negative is ever appropriate. Has anyone ever surpassed Faulkner in this usage?
But the best use of this book is for pure and simple enjoyment. If you are reading this review, then it is very likely that you enjoy words. This book was written for us. Every reader will find something to learn or laugh at/with. I plan to keep a copy on my desk for work purposes and comic relief. In quoting Mark Twain on the humor in William Dean Howells, Blount (again in Long Time Leaving) has described himself exactly: "His is a humor which flows softly all around about and over and through the mesh of the page, pervasive, refreshing, health-giving, and makes no more show and no more noise than does the circulation of the blood."
Roy Blount, Jr. has written about Robert E. Lee and the Pittsburg Steelers. His twenty books and numerous essays have encompassed a career as a humorist, novelist, biographer, journalist, and memoirist. Born in Indianapolis and raised in Decatur, Georgia, he now lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife, the painter Joan Griswold. He is a regular panelist on NPR's "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me" and is a member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel.
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