Page 20 - The Jewish Voice - January '23

Page 20, The Jewish Voice

arts & entertainment

Book Review: Arranged alphabetically, the hundreds of words – some Film Review:

handsomely illustrated with artwork by Gregg Chadwick –
The Painted Word: A Treasure include both the recognizable and the many you may well wish Mr. Harrington’s Phone
Chest of Remarkable Words to learn how to sprinkle into your own future correspondence. By Nils A. Shapiro
Here is a small sampling:
and Their Origins Aloof; Biscuit; Book; Caprice; Chiaroscuro; Chutzpah; O f all the
Deadbeat; Dromomania; Honorificabilitudinitatibus; literary genres,
By Nils A. Shapiro Horripilation; Inkling; Kit and Caboodle; Kitsch; Knuckle the one I least
To say that the author Under; Kvetch; Loophole; Malaprop; Maunder; Millihelen; e n j o y re a d i n g
of this month’s subject Mojo; Okay; Omphaloskepsis; Onomatopoeia; Oxymoron; is “horror.” The
volume “has a way with Palindrome; Philomath; Phlug; Plucky; Prevaricate; only downside I
words” (pun intended) is the Quintessential; Ramify; Riffraff; Sackbut; Schmear; Scruple; can think of in
understatement of the year! Sesquipedalian; Skulduggery; Tout; Tsmesis; Twitterati; that regard is my
By the time The Painted Umbrage; Up to Scratch; Voluptuous; Wanton; Wordpecker; having missed
Word was published in 2012, Xenoglossia; Zoolite. almost all of the
Phil Cousineau – a writer, What makes learning so much fun throughout is the author’s published works
photographer, filmmaker, sense of humor, as the following entry – admittedly, one of the of Ameri ca’s
editor and teacher – had less serious among the hundreds included – demonstrates: most prolific and
written to excellent reviews “Phlug. Belly-button lint. Now tell me you’ve bestselling author
36 books, all of them dealing in one way or another with never wondered what to call it. File this one under of fiction, Stephen
the subject of words: myths, poems, songs, chants, sports ‘whatchamacallits’, that vast category of indescribables, King.
lingo, ancient to modern languages, and so on. Typical of unmentionables, or just plain word gaps in the language In fact, I can
the reviews was this one: – all those words waiting, like long-buried treasure, to be recall having read,
“If The Painted Word were a club act, I’d sit there rediscovered, or at least to help us with our stammering. and reviewed in this column, only one book by King:
drinking in Cousineau’s revelations, tales and mythologies Comparably icky names would be ‘snot’, from the old word 12, 22, 1963—a novel about a man from the present who
until they kicked me out of the joint.” capturing the similarity between the hardened mucus in goes back in time to a period several weeks before the
So it was no small surprise to me that, as an inveterate the nostrils and a burnt wick. And consider this more vivid assassination of John F. Kennedy and, with full knowledge
lover of words myself, when casually browsing through than you would like: ‘snotter-clout’, an unfortunately vivid of the details of that terrible event, attempts to change the
the shelves of a local bookstore I came across this word for a hanky. ‘Phlug’ is a sterling example of a word course of history saving the President.
intriguing title and cover design and yet failed to that sounds and even looks like the thing it means, although One of my daughters, Brett, gave me her copy of the
recognize the name of so prolific an author. Fortunately we may never actually want to use it. “Hey, honey, can you book, insisting I read it despite my reluctance because
for me – and for those of you who share my passion for pluck that phlug out of your belly button?” may be technically (a) I identified Stephen King with only horror stories,
the beauty and fun of words for their own sake – I took correct but is certainly romantically incorrect. Companion and (b) the book was more than 500 pages in length and
the book home and it has turned out to be an absolute words include ‘snot’, mucus from the nose, from the old I usually limit myself to fewer than 400 because of my
treasure that I am delighted to share with you. Middle English ‘snotte’, which is intimately related to snout. time constraint in having to read a book every month for
This 400-page paperback presents hundreds of words Also, a word that has bedeviled me for years, the very snotty this column.
– some of which will be familiar to you, many of which word ‘booger’, possibly from the French ‘bouger’, to move.” I soon learned that King’s marvelous skill in writing
will be completely new – and in each case explains its Now, if you are the philomath I think – and hope – you dialogue made this book so much of a page-turner that I
meaning and origin … in the process taking you on a are, you will boogie on down to your nearest bookstore, or go finished it in three sittings and enjoyed every minute of it
journey always illuminating and often side-splitting. online, and enjoy your own copy of The Painted Word. Just … not to mention that it had nothing to do with horror!
The following paragraph from the author’s lively think how impressed your friends will be when they note all
introduction offers a very solid reason for the usefulness the newfangled words in your vocabulary. Arts & Entertainment on page 22
of this book:
“The Painted
Word is another 31 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE LOCAL HEADQUARTERS NOT ONLINE DATING
collection of strange FAMILY OWNED & OPERATED ALL CLIENTS PRE-SCREENED REPRESENTING AGES 20-80’S
and m ar velous , 1-ON-1 MATCHMAKING PHOTOS SHOT ON-SITE PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL
rare and recently
coined, curious and
sometimes hilarious REVOLUTION DATING PRESENTS
words. Not unlike
Wordcatcher (my
earlier book), this
volume reflects my
unswerving belief in
the need to unroll the
scroll of language,
from spindle to
spindle, so we can
learn to say what
we really mean and mean what we really say. Not out of
what the proteanly talented David Foster Wallace called
‘snootitude,’ his nose-in-the-air description of ‘extreme
usage fanatics.’ But out of a desire to be alert to what travel
writer Tim Cahill calls the ‘callouses’ that grow over our
words if we use the same ones over and over again.”

Answer for

Crossword Puzzle
New Year

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