Page 15 - Palm City Spotlight - January '23

Palm City Spotlight, Page 15

book rEviEw

The Painted Word: A Treasure “The Painted Word ‘whatchamacallits’, that vast category of indescribables,
Chest Of Remarkable Words is another collection of unmentionables, or just plain word gaps in the language
– all those words waiting, like long-buried treasure, to be
strange and marvelous,
And Their Origins rare and recently coined, rediscovered, or at least to help us with our stammering.
curious and sometimes
Comparably icky names would be ‘snot’, from the old
hilarious words. Not word capturing the similarity between the hardened
By Nils A. Shapiro unlike Wordcatcher mucus in the nostrils and a burnt wick. And consider
To say that the author (my earlier book), this this more vivid than you would like: ‘snotter-clout’, an
of this month’s subject volume reflects my unfortunately vivid word for a hanky. ‘Phlug’ is a sterling
volume “has a way with unswerving belief in example of a word that sounds and even looks like the
words” (pun intended) is the need to unroll the thing it means, although we may never actually want to
the understatement of the scroll of language, from use it. “Hey, honey, can you pluck that phlug out of your
year! spindle to spindle, so we belly button?” may be technically correct but is certainly
By the time The Painted can learn to say what we romantically incorrect. Companion words include ‘snot’,
Word was published in 2012, really mean and mean mucus from the nose, from the old Middle English ‘snotte’,
Phil Cousineau – a writer, what we really say. Not out of what the proteanly talented which is intimately related to snout. Also, a word that has
photographer, filmmaker, David Foster Wallace called ‘snootitude,’ his nose-in- bedeviled me for years, the very snotty word ‘booger’,
editor and teacher – had the-air description of ‘extreme usage fanatics.’ But out possibly from the French ‘bouger’, to move.”
written to excellent reviews 36 books, all of them dealing of a desire to be alert to what travel writer Tim Cahill Now, if you are the philomath I think – and hope – you
in one way or another with the subject of words: myths, calls the ‘callouses’ that grow over our words if we use are, you will boogie on down to your nearest bookstore,
poems, songs, chants, sports lingo, ancient to modern the same ones over and over again.” or go online, and enjoy your own copy of The Painted
languages, and so on. Typical of the reviews was this one: Arranged alphabetically, the hundreds of words – some Word. Just think how impressed your friends will be when
“If The Painted Word were a club act, I’d sit handsomely illustrated with artwork by Gregg Chadwick they note all the newfangled words in your vocabulary.
there drinking in Cousineau’s revelations, tales and – include both the recognizable and the many you may
mythologies until they kicked me out of the joint.” well wish to learn how to sprinkle into your own future
So it was no small surprise to me that, as an inveterate correspondence. Here is a small sampling:
lover of words myself, when casually browsing through Aloof; Biscuit; Book; Caprice; Chiaroscuro; Chutzpah;
the shelves of a local bookstore I came across this Deadbeat; Dromomania; Honorificabilitudinitatibus;
intriguing title and cover design and yet failed to Horripilation; Inkling; Kit and Caboodle; Kitsch;
recognize the name of so prolific an author. Fortunately Knuckle Under; Kvetch; Loophole; Malaprop; Maunder;
for me – and for those of you who share my passion for Millihelen; Mojo; Okay; Omphaloskepsis; Onomatopoeia;
the beauty and fun of words for their own sake – I took Oxymoron; Palindrome; Philomath; Phlug; Plucky;
the book home and it has turned out to be an absolute Prevaricate; Quintessential; Ramify; Riffraff; Sackbut;
treasure that I am delighted to share with you. Schmear; Scruple; Sesquipedalian; Skulduggery; Tout;
This 400-page paperback presents hundreds of words Tsmesis; Twitterati; Umbrage; Up to Scratch; Voluptuous;
– some of which will be familiar to you, many of which Wanton; Wordpecker; Xenoglossia; Zoolite.
will be completely new – and in each case explains its What makes learning so much fun throughout is
meaning and origin … in the process taking you on a the author’s sense of humor, as the following entry –
journey always illuminating and often side-splitting. admittedly, one of the less serious among the hundreds
The following paragraph from the author’s lively included – demonstrates:
introduction offers a very solid reason for the usefulness “Phlug. Belly-button lint. Now tell me you’ve
of this book: never wondered what to call it. File this one under

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