Euphonics: a Poet's Dictionary of Sounds

Wooden Books

by John Michell

Michell , John

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Reference, Magic

84 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1999

About the author

John Frederick Carden Michell was an English writer whose key sources of inspiration were Plato and Charles Fort. His 1969 volume The View Over Atlantis has been described as probably the most influential book in the history of the hippy/underground movement and one that had far-reaching effects on the study of strange phenomena: it "put ley lines on the map, re-enchanted the British landscape and made Glastonbury the capital of the New Age."

In some 40-odd titles over five decades he examined, often in pioneering style, such topics as sacred geometry, earth mysteries, geomancy, gematria, archaeoastronomy, metrology, euphonics, simulacra and sacred sites, as well as Fortean phenomena. An abiding preoccupation was the Shakespeare authorship question. His Who Wrote Shakespeare? (1996) was reckoned by The Washington Post "the best overview yet of the authorship question."

Reviews

[Melanie Medved · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rarely give any book 5 stars. My niece gave this to me as a gift, and at first glance, I thought it was just a book of cute and funny rhyme. It's actually one of the most delightful books I've ever read, and I rarely use the word delightful in any context. It's a deep exploration of sound, words, poetics-- the origins of letters and the way we can use them to promote various feelings and effects. Euphonics! Amazing, stunning, surprising, revealing, humorous, marvelous, magnificent! :) Great book for any poet or anyone who loves to explore the hidden or deeper meaning in the ordinary words right in front of us.

[Lance Greenfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a thoughtful gift from my BFF, Eloise De Sousa, who has encouraged me in my quest to become a published poet.

Everybody loves alliteration. Well, almost everybody. Many people don’t even realise that they love alliteration yet reading a story or a poem that is littered with alliteration gives them a warm and comfortable feeling.

This book explains why that is the case. It also explains how the use of each letter of the alphabet, and even sounds such as “CH” and “SL” affect our moods. We are treated with snippets of poetry to illustrate the points that are being made, which are further enhanced by the wonderful drawings of Merrily Harpur.

Allow me to show you with a quote from the book on the page that explains “SL”.

“Since you’re such a slippery slug,”
Hissed Sally with a sullen shrug,
“Slink to Susie’s sluttish slum.
She’s your sort of slimy scum.”

Isn’t that wonderful? How does it make you feel?

In this delightful book of treasures, you will reach the end of each page with a different feeling and you will understand much more about the endless possibilities that good use of letters and sounds can bring to your writing.

It is a perfect complement to The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase by Mark Forsyth, which my father, Tony Greenfield, gifted to me about four years ago.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is power in words, and this charming little book goes a fair way to explaining why that is so. Amazing, amusing, intriguing and informative, it illustrates the principles and consequences of euphonics, the study of how the meaning of words is reflected by the sounds associated with them.

So, for example, the R sound denotes rapidity and hardness, as in 'roughly runs the raging torrent'.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will probably come in handy during A-Levels but actually managed to be sexist and would be offensive to some.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few years ago the comedian Patrice O'Neal related a story in which he told about a bit he did regarding the D.C. Beltway sniper. The punchline of the bit was "N**** in a Buick," and, for whatever reason, the censors bleeped out the word "Buick," presumably because some advertiser didn't want their product associated with a sniper. What Mr. O'Neal discovered in the censoring, though, was that the joke was no longer funny, not without Buick. Why? Because, he observed, hard consonants are funny.

A couple of years before Patrice O'Neal's stand-up career, the philosopher Plato really stepped in it by unleashing a dialogue on the world ("Cratylus") whose content and ramifications everyone involved in language is still dealing with, even if they don't know it. If you speak and write, you have some experience of euphony (or the mangling of the same), which, for present purposes, is the quality of how words hit the ear, especially in combination, irrespective of what actual information is being conveyed. Everything from onomatopoeia to scansion and alliteration falls under the umbrella of the term.

"Euphonics" by John Michell (with illustrations by Merrily Harpur) is a light-hearted, not-too-serious look at the history and art of euphonics, taking the reader on an orthographic journey from A to Z (with some detours to explicate the effects of certain letter combinations).

The short book is almost like an Anglophile poet's Futhark, explicated in funny, whimsical (and sometimes crude) rhymes which get the point across that the sounds that constitute words convey meaning independent of the words themselves. Words with heavy "Z" sounds imply laziness, haziness, the confusion of a maze, for instance. A bunch of "S's" produce a sibilant effect that can remind one of something secretive, shameful, or perhaps slithering like a snake.

For all the book's playfulness, though, and despite its breezy style, it really is a thing of beauty. It's a reminder of the joy and genius of language, a genius that's native to all of us, but which sometimes needs a rekindling. You know a book is good when a kid in kindergarten or a Poet Laureate can get something from it. Highest recommendation.

[Alex St-John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although much thought went into an interesting collection of words and creative banal phrases, it seems it was put together in a rush (5 typos on page vi, 'tempest' under 'tr' words, random distinction made between letters and phonemes), this book(let) only occasionally scratches the surface of psychological aspects behind sounds and letters. I was expecting a bit more than that.
Gloomy chasm, indeed.

[LudmilaM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing little book. Meaning behind sound of letters & expression.

[Joseph Dougherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute and fun lil reference!