awippsome

Book Review

First, as john wayne would say, "let's get to the rat killin."

AHEM. So. I finished this glorious little piece of heaven:

This was probably the most interesting read thus far this semester... and i'm reading a helluva lotta books. allow me to supply you with some notable quotables by Mr. Evan Morris:

• "CABALS manipulate global currency rates. CABALS do not hold bake sales" (35).
  
  
• "There's nothing so bracing on a cool, dark autumn evening as walking out your front door into a COBWEB so huge that its owner must eat whole chickens for lunch" (46).
  
  
• "The average reader doesn't give a dingo's yelp about the deficit or global warming or the Spice Ladies and all that trendy folderol" (49).
  
  
• "Cul-de-sac translates into English as 'huge radioactive swamp full of giant mutant frogs.' Bummer, eh?" (55).
  
  
• "Words change their meanings over time because they are, first and foremost, tools of human communication" (58).
  
  
• "The simplest way to invent a word for a particular thing or action is simply to imitate the sound the thing or action itself makes" (72).
  
  
• "I seem to vaguely remember John Wayne saying "ya big galoot" in some horse opera or other..." (83).
  
  
• "The origin of the word nerd is hazy; it may just be variation on the 1940s slang term nert, itself a variation of nut. But one theory traces it to a surprising source-- Theodore Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss. [...] Geisel invented his nerd as a nonsene word with no apparent connection to nerds as we know them today. Still, given the enormous popularity of the Seuss books, this may actually be the origin of our modern nerd" (137).
  
  
• "By the 18th century all the major writers were cramming things into NUTSHELLS" (141).
  
  
• "Certainly, I shed enlightenment the wya my cat sheds fur" (144).
  
  
• "Quack is what linguists call an echoic or imitative word-- it arose simply because folks thought it was a good approximation of the actual sound it describes" (166).
  
  
• "As any good writing teacher will tell you, the first step in creative writing is always to edit reality" (168).
  
  
• "One popular story about the origin of the name sundae traces it to an ice cream purveyor in Manitowoc, Wisconsin" (194).
  
  
• "St. Audrey's Lace was slutred into tawdry lace, via a common linguistic process called elision" (198).

Morris has an intelligent, dry, and sarcastic wit. I LOVE it. Not only did i recognize some terms from class, but i also picked up some tidbits about authors who love to make up words/phrases or words/phrases invented to reference certain authors/works.

• Shakespeare: (among the thousands there are): in a nutshell, salad days, and sea-change.
• John Milton: pandemonium
• Johnathan Swift: it's raining cats and dogs, and yahoo
• Charles Dickens: Pecksniffian
• James Fenimore Cooper: pork barrel
• Chaucer: caterwaul
• Washington Irving: doughnut
• Lewis Carroll: portmanteau word, chortle

If i hadn't been lucky enough to find Moris' book, Lewis Carroll wouldn't have piqued my interest.

Ok. So. here are all the books that I checked out on thursday. they're all about or by lewis carroll. oh, frabjous day!!! (which i think is a conglomeration of fabulous, joy, and rapture)

I started with the hunting of the snark. I'm going to write down all the "invented words" and try to figure out what they mean. A notable quotable i found in the preface might help you figure out tonight's title:

"This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard words in that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.

For instantce, take the two words 'fuming' and 'furious.' Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards 'fuming,' you will say 'fuming -furious'; if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards 'furious,' you will say 'furious-fuming'; but if you have that rarest of gifts a perfectly balanced mind, you will say 'frumious'" (9).

This one focuses on carroll's life. It's a good read. interesting.

Ok, so that's it for now.... an extra ten million life points if you can figure out the portmanteau word that i made to title this entry. it's a phrase i use a lot!

good luck!