<DIV><DIV><DIV><DIV><DIV><P><B>Fresh-squeezed Lexicology, with Twists<BR><BR></B>No man of letters savors the ABC's, or serves them up, like language-loving humorist Roy Blount Jr. His glossary, from <I>ad</I> <I>hominy</I> to <I>zizz</I>,<I> </I>is hearty, full bodied, and out to please discriminating palates coarse and fine. In 2008, he celebrated the gists, tangs, and energies of letters and their combinations in <I>Alphabet Juice</I>, to wide acclaim. Now, <I>Alphabetter Juice</I>. Which is <I>better</I>.<BR><BR>This book<I> </I>is for anyone—novice wordsmith, sensuous reader, or career grammarian—who loves to get physical with words. What is the universal sign of disgust, <I>ew</I>, doing in <I>beautiful</I> and <I>cutie</I>? Why is <I>toadless</I>, but not <I>frogless</I>, in the Oxford English Dictionary? How can the U. S. Supreme Court find relevance in <I>gollywoddles</I>? Might there be scientific evidence for the sonicky value of <I>hunch</I>? And why would someone not bother to spell correctly the very word he is trying to define on Urbandictionary.com?<BR><BR>Digging into how locutions evolve, and work, or fail, Blount<I> </I>draws upon everything from <I>The Tempest</I> to <I>The Wire</I>. He takes us to Iceland, for salmon-watching with a “girl gillie,” and to Georgian England, where a distinguished etymologist bites off more of a “giantess” than he can chew. Jimmy Stewart appears, in connection with <I>kludge </I>and the bombing of Switzerland. Litigation over <I>supercalifragilisticexpialidocious </I>leads to a vintage werewolf movie; news of possum-tossing, to <I>metanarrative.<BR><BR></I>As Michael Dirda wrote in <I>The Washington Post Book World</I>, “The immensely likeable Blount clearly possesses what was called in the Italian Renaissance 'sprezzatura,' that rare and enviable ability to do even the most difficult things without breaking a sweat.” <I>Alphabetter Juice</I> is brimming with sprezzatura. Have a taste.</P></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>