Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips

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?

“[Blounts] 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 its 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 subtitleThe 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 Savoryand 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. Its easy to picture him making a pub crawl of the Oxford English Dictionary, Websters 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 its readable at first glance and also worth lingering over. This book is both, and danced in Blounts 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 theyre 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 humor and wordplay came naturally to him as a Southerner, he accused me of an ad hominy. Nothing so easily won! he said. Words come one at a time. 'It's a sensuous connection. All English should be body English.' His books are invariably smarthis new Alphabet Juice, delightfully literarybut there's always a loon-on-the-run- through-the-fun-house quality in them. As if Mark Twain had tossed back a whole jar of moonshine. At least that's what his fellow Southerners say. With Blount, one thought leads to the next and, before you know it, there's a dizzy chain of free association. But don't let that fool you. There's also a deep strategy at work. You'll find it in the accompanying essay. Amusing as it is, it teaches