If everybody's first English teacher were Roy Blount Jr., we might still be trillions in debt, but we would be so deeply in love with words and their magic . . . that we'd hardly notice. --Chris Tucker, The Dallas Morning News After forty years of making a living using words in every medium except greeting cards, Roy Blount Jr. still can't get over his ABCs. In Alphabet Juice, he celebrates the juju, the crackle, the sonic and kinetic energies, of letters and their combinations. He has a strong sense of right and wrong, but he is not out to prescribe proper English. His passion is for questions such as these: Did you know that both mammal and matter derive from baby talk? Have you noticed how wince makes you wince? Three and a half centuries ago, Thomas Blount produced his Glossographia, the first dictionary to explore derivations of English words. This Blount's Glossographia takes that pursuit to new levels. From sources as venerable as the OED and as fresh as Urbandictionary.com, 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. Amusing, bemusing, and smart as hell. --Daniel Okrent, Fortune Danced in Blount's arms, English swings smartly. --Jack Shafer, The New York Times Book Review Gracefully erudite and joyous. --Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Sunday Globe

Roy Blount Jr. is the author of twenty previous books, covering subjects from the Pittsburgh Steelers to Robert E. Lee to what dogs are thinking. 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. Born in Indianapolis and raised in Decatur, Georgia, Blount now lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife, the painter Joan Griswold.

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. Like many writers, I keep a few books on a shelf to unclog my brain for those times when the right combination of words refuses to muster for service. To that pantheon I add Alphabet Juice for its erudition, its grand fun and its contrary view on what constitutes good writing . . . Not that Blount counsels self-indulgence. Writing 'needs to be quick, so it's readable at first glance and also worth lingering over.' This book is both, and danced in Blount's arms, English swings smartly. My admiration for Alphabet Juice only swelled when it proposed a conclusion for this review. Reviewers like to apply the word 'uneven' to books they're fond of, but have a few reservations about. 'Would you want to read a book that was even?' he asks. Yes, very much so. And I just did.--Jack Shafer, The New York Times Book Review

Blount's] twenty previous books have been loping reportage and rambling memoirs and occasional doggerel, treating sports, dogs and cats, and above all the culture of the American South, but his latest, Alphabet Juice, may be his best and most heartfelt. Which is odd, because it's in alphabetical order. Nonetheless it is most suitable for reading, not for reference . . . In the tradition of the first English dictionaries, it has a very long subtitle--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 this suggests the nature of the contents: some definition, some etymology, admonitions, jokes, (see fart jokes), yarns, name-dropping, some long-remembered peeves, and some fresh comedy culled from cyberspace. Alphabet Juice is a hodgepodge, in other words. Blount has emptied his notebook. He mixes traditionalism with futurism and veers from schoolmasterly to slapstick. It makes for a perfect wordbook for our peculiar times, when the language is running so gloriously amok . . . Right now the language has few keener listeners than Blount.--James Gleick, The New York Review of Books

A self-diagnosed hyperlexic almost since first grade, Blount hangs out in dictionaries the way other writers hang out in bars. It's easy to picture him making a pub crawl of the Oxford English Dictionary, Webster's Third New International Dictionary (unabridged), the Random House unabridged dictionary and especially the American Heritage Dictionary, where he helps tend bar as a member of its official usage panel. Both giddy and sober, as if ripped on Old Crow fortified with Adderall, Blount chases letters, words and phrases to their origins, and when stumped he hypothesizes . . . Marginalized as a humorist (like Mencken) because he knows how to write funny, Blount is also a superb reporter who possesses an imaginative intellect (also like Mencken) . . . Like many writers, I keep a few books on a shelf to unclog my brain for those times when the right combination of words refuses to muster for service. To that pantheon I add Alphabet Juice for its erudition, its grand fun and its contrary view on what constitutes good writing . . . Not that Blount counsels self-indulgence. Writing 'needs to be quick, so it's readable at first glance and also worth lingering over.' This book is both, and danced in Blount's arms, English swings smartly. My admiration for Alphabet Juice only swelled when it proposed a conclusion for this review. Reviewers like to apply the word 'uneven' to books they're fond of, but have a few reservations about. 'Would you want to read a book that was even?' he asks. Yes, very much so. And I just did.--Jack Shafer, The New York Times Book Review

When I asked Roy Blount Jr. whether his sly

After 40 years of making a living using words in every medium, print or electronic, Blount still can't get over his ABCs. In "Alphabet Juice," he celebrates the juju, the sonic and kinetic energies of letters and their combinations.

If everybody's first English teacher were Roy Blount Jr., we might still be trillions in debt, but we would be so deeply in love with words and their magic . . . that we'd hardly notice. --Chris Tucker, The Dallas Morning News After forty years of making a living using words in every medium except greeting cards, Roy Blount Jr. still can't get over his ABCs. In Alphabet Juice, he celebrates the juju, the crackle, the sonic and kinetic energies, of letters and their combinations. He has a strong sense of right and wrong, but he is not out to prescribe proper English. His passion is for questions such as these: Did you know that both mammal and matter derive from baby talk? Have you noticed how wince makes you wince? Three and a half centuries ago, Thomas Blount produced his Glossographia, the first dictionary to explore derivations of English words. This Blount's Glossographia takes that pursuit to new levels. From sources as venerable as the OED and as fresh as Urbandictionary.com, 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. Amusing, bemusing, and smart as hell. --Daniel Okrent, Fortune Danced in Blount's arms, English swings smartly. --Jack Shafer, The New York Times Book Review Gracefully erudite and joyous. --Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Sunday Globe

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.