Roy Blount, Jr.
Author of Alphabet Juice
About the Author
Roy Blount, Jr., has written for the Atlantic Monthly since 1981.
Image credit: Credit: Larry D. Moore, 2007 Texas Book Festival, Austin, Texas
Series
Works by Roy Blount, Jr.
If Only You Knew How Much I Smell You: True Portraits of Dogs (1998) — Author — 250 copies, 8 reviews
Hail, Hail, Euphoria!: Presenting the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, the Greatest War Movie Ever Made (2010) 103 copies, 4 reviews
About Three Bricks Shy of a Load: A Highly Irregular Lowdown on the Year the Pittsburgh Steelers Were Super but Missed the Bowl (1974) 56 copies
About Three Bricks Shy... And the Load Filled Up: The Story of the Greatest Football Team Ever (1974) 40 copies
Elvis: All Shook Up: Stories and Insights from Family Members, Journalists, and Those Who Were There (2012) 9 copies
Dispatches Volume One: What Men Don't Tell Women; One Fell Soup; and Camels Are Easy, Comedy's Hard (2018) 3 copies
Book Of Southern Humor 1 copy
Spoofing the Graphic 1 copy
Webster's Ark 1 copy
Associated Works
Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker (2001) — Contributor — 788 copies, 5 reviews
For the Love of Books: 115 Celebrated Writers on the Books They Love Most (1999) — Contributor — 479 copies, 4 reviews
The 50 Funniest American Writers: An Anthology of Humor from Mark Twain to The Onion (2011) — Contributor — 286 copies, 3 reviews
The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Work (2010) — Contributor — 159 copies, 1 review
Know the Past, Find the Future: The New York Public Library at 100 (2011) — Contributor — 132 copies, 4 reviews
The Sophisticated Cat: A Gathering of Stories, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings About Cats (1992) — Contributor — 112 copies, 1 review
Mid-life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude (1994) — Contributor — 75 copies, 4 reviews
Who's Writing This? Notations on the Authorial I, with Self-Portraits {not Antæus} (1995) — Contributor — 75 copies
Best of The Oxford American: Ten Years from the Southern Magazine of Good Writing {anthology} (2002) — Contributor — 45 copies
Antaeus No. 61, Autumn 1988 - Journals, Notebooks & Diaries (1988) — Contributor — 38 copies, 2 reviews
Sports Guy: In Search of Corkball, Warroad Hockey, Hooters Golf, Tiger Woods, and the Big, Big Game (2000) — Foreword — 22 copies, 1 review
Antaeus No. 64/65, Spring/Autumn 1990 - Twentieth Anniversary Issue (1990) — Contributor — 14 copies
Renegades: My Wild Trip from Professor to New Journalist with Outrageous Visits from Clint Eastwood, Reggie Jackson, Larry Flynt, and other American Icons (2012) — Introduction — 10 copies
Antaeus No. 73/74, Spring 1994 - Who’s Writing This: Notations on the Authorial I {magazine} (1994) — Contributor — 5 copies
Sports Illustrated | September 5, 1994 (NFL '94 Preview: In the Line of Fire) (1994) — Contributor — 1 copy
Oxford American: The Southern Magazine of Good Writing. No. 57 (2007): Best of the South (2007) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Blount, Roy, Jr.
- Birthdate
- 1941-10-04
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Harvard University (M.A., 1964)
Vanderbilt University (B.A., 1963) - Occupations
- humorist
journalist
actor
musician - Organizations
- Rock Bottom Remainders (band)
Fellowship of Southern Writers
Authors Guild (president)
National Public Radio (Wait, Wait. . . Don't Tell Me) - Awards and honors
- Thomas Wolfe Award (2009)
Phi Beta Kappa - Short biography
- Roy Blount, Jr. says on his web site: Born to Southern parents in Indianapolis. Grew up in Decatur, Georgia. U.S. Army 1964-66. Reporter and columnist for Atlanta Journal and part-time English instructor at Georgia State College, 1966-68. Free-lance since leaving SI in 1975. Husband of painter Joan Griswold, father of social worker daughter Ennis and director-writer-actor-songwriter son Kirven (with whom he wrote and appeared in a five-minute film on extreme sports for ESPN), grandfather of of Jesse, Noah and Elsie. No pets at present, but previously dogs, cats, horse, rooster, snake, turtle, hamster, monitor lizard, parakeet and hens.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
- Places of residence
- Decatur, Georgia, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, ... With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory by Roy Blount Jr.
This book is a whole lot of fun. Now, I have to admit…I’m a grammar/word geek, so it is easy for me to fall in love with the book. But I’ve got to think anyone would enjoy it because it is more than just a book about words. It is about Roy Blount, Jr., and it is about politics, and it is about culture (particularly the south), and it is about funny. And, never forget, it is also about words – a love of and reverence for words.
Organized in alphabetical order (now, why doesn’t that show more surprise me), Blount picks and chooses the words he wants to talk about. In some cases he only spends one line on a word. In others he spends a page or two. It all depends on what he feels like talking about at the time. Here’s just a hint of how varied the word choice is. The entry for “E” starts with “editing”, then moves on to “eerie”, “egg”, “eggcorn”, “egg jokes”, “either”, then “electricity/chewing tobacco”. (“What do these things have in common? They both involve juice…”)
But let’s get back to that word thing. What completely sells it for me is when Blount digs into the words people use incorrectly, and his abhorrence of such practices. For example: the misuse of “hopefully”, a discussion of adverbial or adjectival drift (and don’t you just love the use of the word “adjectival”), what “beg the question” really means, the concept of “Moebius statements”, etc. (Surprisingly, he doesn’t even mention “etc.”, let alone its use by people too lazy to finish a thought.)
Get this book. You will be entertained and actually learn something. But, honest, there won’t be too much of that learning thing. show less
Organized in alphabetical order (now, why doesn’t that show more surprise me), Blount picks and chooses the words he wants to talk about. In some cases he only spends one line on a word. In others he spends a page or two. It all depends on what he feels like talking about at the time. Here’s just a hint of how varied the word choice is. The entry for “E” starts with “editing”, then moves on to “eerie”, “egg”, “eggcorn”, “egg jokes”, “either”, then “electricity/chewing tobacco”. (“What do these things have in common? They both involve juice…”)
But let’s get back to that word thing. What completely sells it for me is when Blount digs into the words people use incorrectly, and his abhorrence of such practices. For example: the misuse of “hopefully”, a discussion of adverbial or adjectival drift (and don’t you just love the use of the word “adjectival”), what “beg the question” really means, the concept of “Moebius statements”, etc. (Surprisingly, he doesn’t even mention “etc.”, let alone its use by people too lazy to finish a thought.)
Get this book. You will be entertained and actually learn something. But, honest, there won’t be too much of that learning thing. show less
Blount is balanced between a natural love of his homeland and a self-conscious shame for the crimes of the South. While he resents the assumptions made by Northerners that all Southerners are ignorant racists, he must acknowledge historical realities. Given the miserable record of the US on race relations, genocide of Native peoples and imperialism, those of us born in the north should join Blount in ambivalence about our heritage.
Hail, Hail, Euphoria!: Presenting the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, the Greatest War Movie Ever Made by Roy Blount Jr.
An extremely discursive discussion of Duck Soup, the most brilliant and subversive Marx Brothers movie, and short enough that you can spend an hour or two watching and reading at the same time. Here it is EIGHTY YEARS later and I still laughed until the tears ran.
Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, ... With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory by Roy Blount Jr.
Three stars for content, one extra for Blount's espièglerie in writing such an idiosyncratic book. No slouch in the word dept, he brushes Chomsky aside, and argues that words in general have a more onomotopaeic quality than the linguists tend to credit them with. He has all kinds of fun chasing down etymologies and occasionally inventing them, rambling on about his favorite words. For Blount is not a theorist of words, but someone who loves words. As he himself notes, this is a sort of show more dictionary, not meant to be read through, but browsed. And having browsed it unto completion, I am right glad to have done it. Bless your vocabulary, your thinking, your writing, and your funny bone, and read Alphabet Juice. show less
Lists
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 35
- Also by
- 37
- Members
- 2,659
- Popularity
- #9,646
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 59
- ISBNs
- 109
- Languages
- 2
- Favorited
- 3
