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The Disheveled Dictionary: A Curious Caper Through Our Sumptuous Lexicon
A fascinating journey inside the mysteries of the English language celebrates the rich diversity of speech and the overall sensuality of language, both in the most obscure of words and in the most common.
162 pages, Hardcover
First published July 30, 1997
2 people are currently reading
310 people want to read
About the author
Karen Elizabeth Gordon
15 books75 followersKaren Elizabeth Gordon, who is most well-known for her comic language handbooks The New Well-Tempered Sentence and The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, is also author to a collection of short stories published by Dalkey Archive Press. The Red Shoes and Other Tattered Tales was hailed by many critics as Rabelaisian in its humor.
Gordon resides alternately in Berkeley, California and Paris.
from http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/catalog/...
Gordon resides alternately in Berkeley, California and Paris.
from http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/catalog/...
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
August 12, 2012
Rating: 3.75* of five (rounded up for star purposes)
The Book Report: The book description says:
"What on earth does lagniappe mean? A sluggard who lies around till noon? A she-wolf of Anapurna? A car that demands heavy pampering?" In fact, none of the above. But one can find this Creole French word delectably defined in THE DISHEVELED DICTIONARY, which does for vocabulary what Gordon's cult classic THE WELL-TEMPERED SENTENCE did for punctuation and THE TRANSITIVE VAMPIRE did for grammar.
THE DISHEVELED DICTIONARY takes a voluptuary's approach to language, offering a lavish feast of words and their multiple uses. Favorite characters from Gordon's earlier books appear in cameo, including Yolanta, Jonquil Mapp, cowboys with lingerie, and assorted royal riffraff. With her trademark cache of illustrations and flamboyantly gothic examples, Gordon takes readers on a hedonist's tour of the world of words, where they can check into the Last Judgment Pinball Machine Motel, slip into susurrant silk pajamas at Cafe Frangipane, or plunge into scenes from such literary works as Torpor in the Swing,The Wretch of Lugubria, and Gossamer and the Green Light.
Laced with erudite insights and eccentric wit, THE DISHEVELED DICTIONARY is about the music of speech and the sound and sensuality of language, celebrating not only the obsure but also our most beloved and basic words.
My Review: I read this because Stephen-from-Ohio read it, so I could prove the point that I do NOT hate every book he loves. I was right, I don't hate this book, not at all. I like Gordon's funny, illustrative story snippets and I like the wide net she casts to bring us cool words. In fact, two of my all-time top-ten fave-rave words appear, with amusante little vignettes, on the same page: louche (disreputable, shady, dubious) and lubricious (sexually aroused or obsessed).
The wonderful thing about such books, the browser's dictionaries, is the delight they afford the wordnik. I am unquestionably an enthusiastic wordnik, a complete grinning fool when it comes to English's unrepentant pillaging of other languages' treasuries of words for its own enrichment. I adore that facet of the Anglophone mindset that says, “ooo shiny little trinket gimme gimme” and adds thereby a shade of meaning to its already immense, lustrous, gorgeously hued pile of drachenfutter that is the vocabulary you and I can draw on. “Start” isn't the same as “commence” which isn't exactly “begin,” though they're all in the same family. Shades of meaning make language so much more fun to use and to examine. I love the little books that help me do this.
See? See?! I liked a book you did, Stephen-from-Ohio! And liked it a lot! Thanks for showing it to me.
The Book Report: The book description says:
"What on earth does lagniappe mean? A sluggard who lies around till noon? A she-wolf of Anapurna? A car that demands heavy pampering?" In fact, none of the above. But one can find this Creole French word delectably defined in THE DISHEVELED DICTIONARY, which does for vocabulary what Gordon's cult classic THE WELL-TEMPERED SENTENCE did for punctuation and THE TRANSITIVE VAMPIRE did for grammar.
THE DISHEVELED DICTIONARY takes a voluptuary's approach to language, offering a lavish feast of words and their multiple uses. Favorite characters from Gordon's earlier books appear in cameo, including Yolanta, Jonquil Mapp, cowboys with lingerie, and assorted royal riffraff. With her trademark cache of illustrations and flamboyantly gothic examples, Gordon takes readers on a hedonist's tour of the world of words, where they can check into the Last Judgment Pinball Machine Motel, slip into susurrant silk pajamas at Cafe Frangipane, or plunge into scenes from such literary works as Torpor in the Swing,The Wretch of Lugubria, and Gossamer and the Green Light.
Laced with erudite insights and eccentric wit, THE DISHEVELED DICTIONARY is about the music of speech and the sound and sensuality of language, celebrating not only the obsure but also our most beloved and basic words.
My Review: I read this because Stephen-from-Ohio read it, so I could prove the point that I do NOT hate every book he loves. I was right, I don't hate this book, not at all. I like Gordon's funny, illustrative story snippets and I like the wide net she casts to bring us cool words. In fact, two of my all-time top-ten fave-rave words appear, with amusante little vignettes, on the same page: louche (disreputable, shady, dubious) and lubricious (sexually aroused or obsessed).
The wonderful thing about such books, the browser's dictionaries, is the delight they afford the wordnik. I am unquestionably an enthusiastic wordnik, a complete grinning fool when it comes to English's unrepentant pillaging of other languages' treasuries of words for its own enrichment. I adore that facet of the Anglophone mindset that says, “ooo shiny little trinket gimme gimme” and adds thereby a shade of meaning to its already immense, lustrous, gorgeously hued pile of drachenfutter that is the vocabulary you and I can draw on. “Start” isn't the same as “commence” which isn't exactly “begin,” though they're all in the same family. Shades of meaning make language so much more fun to use and to examine. I love the little books that help me do this.
See? See?! I liked a book you did, Stephen-from-Ohio! And liked it a lot! Thanks for showing it to me.
August 20, 2014
"What distinguishes poetry from automatic speech is that it rouses and shakes us into wakefulness in the middle of a word. Then it turns out that the word is much longer than we thought, and we remember that to speak means to be forever on the road."
"...the mastodons with their rough and polished manners"
"What a face to come home to! Twinkling, mocking, and contrite."
A young poet once said to Mallarme, "I had the most marvellous idea for a poem this afternoon." "Oh dear," said Mallarme, "what a pity." "What do you mean?" said the young poet. "Well," said Mallarme, "poems aren't made of ideas, are they? They're made of words."
"...the mastodons with their rough and polished manners"
"What a face to come home to! Twinkling, mocking, and contrite."
A young poet once said to Mallarme, "I had the most marvellous idea for a poem this afternoon." "Oh dear," said Mallarme, "what a pity." "What do you mean?" said the young poet. "Well," said Mallarme, "poems aren't made of ideas, are they? They're made of words."
July 10, 2022
Herein lies a great collection of rarely used or archaic words. Unfortunately the author composed most of her own examples of usage with her turgid and unctuous prose. I had to flog myself to get through it.
July 3, 2018
Delightful! Sure to inspire spumescent divagation among pajama-clad chasmophiles and rusticated putti alike.
December 19, 2021
I keep, here and there, some lists of words I've come across in my reading, without explanation or definitions, just to enjoy the sound and look of. Such as
aleatoryClearly Gordon shares my proclivities, and has written a dictionary of words she likes, "prickly words of sky-blue wasps, words with powerful snouts, discreet words whispered by fishes" as she quotes James Ensor; or (in the words of Gertrude Stein) "burning words, cleansing words, liberating words…it was enough that we held them in our hands to play with them".
eutaxy
cynosure
tessera
moiety
oneiric
factitious
estaminet
thalassicA childhood fan of Chaucer, Gordon - a grammarian and poet - has an ear for language quite independent of meaning. This book is a dictionary of sorts, but furnished with exemplary sentences mostly taken from a canon of fictitious works, which tie together a baroque world of prima donnas, cowboys, louche European aristocrats, and more or less constant ribald intimations. I liked the Borgesian concept of a series of books only seen obliquely, but the conceit did wear thin before the end. An appendix maps out the words' cosmopolitan origins.
iatrogenic
antinomy
shiftless
pettifogging
deliquesce
holophrastic
descant
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April 21, 2021Reminiscent of "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce, but with a more politically correct tone, Karen Gordon teaches, amuses and inspires...
June 21, 2010
An intruiging romp through definitions of some of the more colorful words in the English language, followed by even more colorful usage sentences. Definitely a word-lover's book, particularly because Gordon uses her chosen words more idiomatically than not. A fun escape from the drab and dreary commonality of language.
March 11, 2012
One of my favorite books will always be the dictionary, so I was delighted to learn of this one in particular. Ever since I was in high school and my English IV teacher accused my friend and me of enjoying "thesaurus orgies" whenever we had to write anything, I've always been on the hunt for more verbal pepper to spice up my vocabulary.
August 25, 2016
This is more of a reference book. It is just a listing of words and definitions that are not used as often these days, although, several were common words for me and my adult sons. It is interesting to flip though this book but I am disappointed that it doesn't have a pronunciation guide for words that are new to you. I had to use the internet to learn how to pronounce them.
June 11, 2010
A quick and entertaining read in Gordon's signature tongue-in-cheek gothic style. It's a book to borrow it if a friend has it laying around, but not one you'll need to add to your permanent collection.
June 19, 2016
A delightful little volume filled with flowery words to spruce up anyone's written and oral vocabulary. I could not escape the feeling that the author wrote this as somewhat of an inside joke with a friend I don't know. And there is an inescapable obsession with frangipane.
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March 19, 2008I love these books, they make grammar and words fun. Just the way they should be.
February 13, 2009
Screamingly funny. I adore this, and Ms. Gordon's work generally.
June 6, 2010
Gordon's dictionary is a collection of intriguing and unusual words with extravagantly rich, precise definitions, and "flamboyantly gothic" examples.
August 8, 2014
An amusing romp through the bizarre and dark corners of the rare sections of the English lexicon.
August 25, 2012
Good book interesting and informative just the way I like them!
August 14, 2013
Light, but fun.
October 15, 2012
Hilarious, quirky and FUN. Great to pick up for a mood-boosting couple of pages break from the day.
May 3, 2016
Again, a winner from a favorite author of mine. And, again, a book I have used as a reference many times over.
September 11, 2012
This is a hoot. And I learned new words, too!
Want to read
January 22, 2014I need to study up for my position as an editor.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews