Gleanings from My Readings

“Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.”
---Jane Austen, in Persuasion

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“Few of us have the temperament of monks. Most of us draw sustenance from the human drama. We might recognize the tremulous signals emanating from some invisible inner universe, but most of us see no choice but to live in the world, to engage in commerce, to seek delight in people and things around us. Perhaps when we knock wood to preserve our luck, what we’re really doing is convincing ourselves of the solidity of the present, distinguishing the actual from the wishful.”
---Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat Gazette columnist

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Actual title of new workout video: Bollywood Booty. I’m not kidding. Not only will this video help you “stay fit and get firm,” it will also “help you release your inhibitions.” Isn’t that what everyone looks for in a workout?

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“To me, letters have always been a robust medium of sublimation. I don’t remember what I was like before I learned my ABC’s, but for as long as I can remember I have made them with my fingers and felt them in my bones.”

“I do hope you realize that every time you use disinterested to mean uninterested, an angel dies, and every time you write very unique, or “We will hire whomever is more qualified,” thousands of literate people lose yet another smidgen of hope. And please promise me you will never lose your grip on the subjunctive.”

---Ray Blount, Jr., in the Introduction to Alphabet Juice

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“The problem with God—or at any rate, one of the top five most annoying things about God—is that He or She rarely answers right away. It can take days, weeks. Some people seem to understand this—that life and change take time. . . . I, on the other hand, am an instant-message type.”
---Anne Lamott, from Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

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John Donne’s “A Hymn to God the Father” (1633):

I.
WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,

Which was my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run,

And do run still, though still I do deplore?

When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;

For I have more.


II.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won

Others to sin, and made my sins their door?

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun

A year or two, but wallow'd in a score?

When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;

For I have more.


III.
I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun

My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;

But swear by Thyself that at my death Thy Son

Shall shine as He shines now and heretofore:

And having done that, Thou hast done;

I fear no more.

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Happy Reading!

Word Nerd

There were early clues. Take the Dictionary Game, for instance (see 7/31/08 post), or the embarrassing fact that I really liked the Vocabulary lessons in school. Realizing that I have always flipped through each new issue of Reader’s Digest to find the “Word Power” section first would have alerted a more self-aware person, and having one dictionary in my office, one by my chair at home, one downloaded on my laptop, and an electronic one in my purse probably should have tipped me off.

Buying a book called Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages really should have been the final straw. But when I read a review of a book by Roy Blount, Jr. titled

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

and got really excited about buying it, I recognized the truth: I am a Word Nerd.

Blount is a prolific writer in many genres. He’s written essays and novels, reported on sports, compiled a humorous anthology, written cultural commentary and light verse. He’s acted occasionally, is an oral storyteller, a lecturer, and a regular on NPR’s quiz show Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me. He’s a contributing editor for the Atlantic Monthly and a usage adviser to the American Heritage Dictionary. It sure sounds like he’s qualified to write a book about words.

Reviewer Michael Dirda explains,

“The title Alphabet Juice derives from its author’s contention that sound and sense are often strikingly related, that certain letters and combinations of letters possess a gut-level electricity, and that ‘through centuries of knockabout breeding and intimate contact with the human body’ some words ‘have absorbed the uncanny power to carry the ring of truth.’ A high-fiber word like ‘grunt’ sounds right for what it means. Good diction thus tends to be sonicky. Blount’s neologism for that ‘quality of a word whose sound doesn’t imitate a sound, like boom or poof, but does somehow sensuously evoke the essence of the word: queasy or rickety or zest or sluggish or vim.’ To write well, then, we need to use our tongue and ears, not only our mind and fingers.”

Dirda reveals that the book contains many lists, such as Blount’s favorite one-word, two-word, and three-word sentences. For example: “Fuhgeddaboudit.” “Jesus wept.” and “Call me Ishmael.” Blount discusses eccentric names in life and literature, takes jabs at politicians, and celebrates “the New York Times, the South, and lively English.”

Blount may have dubbed himself a “shade-tree lexicographer,” but this Word Nerd is definitely impressed. And headed to the bookstore.

[For the complete review, see “Blount’s bountiful wit infuses Alphabet Juice” in the 10/19/08 edition of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 4H]