In a Word

I don't know if I promised myself I wouldn't get picky, but sometimes you do just feel you want to say something about what someone is saying. Sometimes this gets very confusing, especially when I read Letters to the Editor about other Letters to the Editor about stories I never read. I really have to start to cut the cord somewhere.

The following is culled from a 3-Star reader Amazon book review someone wrote on Last Call, Daniel Okrent's book on Prohibition. There are way more 5 and 4 star reviews, and only a smattering of lower ratings. For someone who claims not to be critical, the writer goes on about things that are not liked. The following:

The book is informative and lively, but eventually the mannerisms in the writing can get irritating, April 25, 2010

HARD WORDS. The author sometimes uses words that are rarely used in speech, and that are only encountered in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) that is taken by high school students. This is not a criticism of the book, it is only an observation. Of course, it is widely recognized that the ultimate book that uses hard words is Melville's MOBY DICK. At any rate, we encounter these words: dithyramb (page 25), anodyne (p. 18), emolument (p. 29), eponymous (p. 35), punctilious (p. 45), disingenuous (p. 93), eulogists (p.110).

Hardly makes it Finnegan's Wake. But of course, that's not exactly what they said. Last Call is 468 pages long and the reviewer cites 7 words as examples of rarity. Perhaps. But the list stops by page 110. I guess Mr. Okrent got a hold of himself, or the reader knew all the other ones that came after.

Certainly nothing wrong with being sent to the dictionary now and then. Another reviewer notes they were sent to the online dictionary now and then. I confess to being sent to the hard copy ones. And I didn't mind. I learned a few new words.

Like today. In a book review in the WSJ of Voyager, by Stephen J. Pyne, the reviewer, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, uses the word "hairshirt" to describe a confab of guilt ridden academics talking about space colonization.

I couldn't get the definition from the context, so I had to look it up. It's a great word. I can't wait for someone on Fox News to use it. I think I can guess the context.

http://onofframp.blogspot.com/