Book Review: The Painted Word

How eloquently Arthur Plotnik (author of another book I'll now seek, The Elements of Expression: Putting Thoughts into Words) puts his praise of this book:

"If The Painted Word were a club act, I'd sit there drinking in Cousineau's revelations, tales and mythologies until they kicked me out of the joint. Reading this brew of etymology, history, lore, and pop connections, with lambent illustrations by Gregg Chadwick, is just as intoxicating. A Cousineau riff on a (passionately selected) word is like Mark Twain meets Coleridge meets Casey Stengel meets - well, everyone who's fun and informative, whether the riff is on autologophagist (someone who eats his/her words) or jack, which, believe me, the world-traveled Cousineau knows when it comes to language."

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Cousineau's entries on words, their usage and their origins. Moreover, as I perused the author's other works list (35), his prolific and intriguing interests astounded me. He offers so many interesting ideas and supporting quotes. For instance:

"Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech." Suetonius, 2nd century

For the entry on flabbergast (amaze, astonish, surprise) - Ogden Nash's lines: "First/ Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder,/ This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder./ A staggering child, a child astounding,/ Dazzling, diaperless, dumbfounding,/ Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed,/ A child to stagger and flabbergast,/ Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn,/ And the only perfect one ever born./ Second/ Arrived this evening at half-past nine./ Everybody is doing fine./ Is it a boy, or quite the reverse?/ You can call in the morning and ask the nurse."

Or a Maya Angelou quote: "You shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back."

He highlights collective nouns: a zeal of zebras, or lesser known human ones an oversight of academics, a brood of researchers or a scrum of philosophers.

Concerning the word "feisty" - a word I've often used to describe my tenacious mother-in-law who will climb a ladder to clean windows when we've asked her not to - I had no idea the word was originally associated with the word "fart" and really means more "snappy, nervous, belligerent, fiery, frisky, or spunky."

Did you know that a trombone was once called a "sackbut?" We can actually find it in Scripture: Daniel 2:3. Or did you know that there's a word for the stars we see when we bump our heads? ("phosphenes") In his last book, I found a delightful German word for coward. This time, the author provides another curious word for coward - "quakebuttock" - I'm such a quakebuttock!

He presents a whole host of words I'm sure I learned from my mother: hifalutin, hoity-toity, hob-nob, holy-moly, fancy-schmancy, hunkydory, ignoramus, inkling, kit and caboodle, etc. Such fun words. This book provides an absolute treasure trove for anyone who loves to digest, encounter, or learn new words, the tools of a writer's trade!