{"id":3006,"date":"2010-10-04T07:46:16","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T11:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/?p=3006"},"modified":"2012-10-04T12:01:22","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T16:01:22","slug":"language-lover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/?p=3006","title":{"rendered":"Language Lover"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RoyBlountSphinx\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the answer to a question that has probably been puzzling you for some time. What do the Sphinx and the sphincter have in common? Well, they share a root in the Greek verb sphingein<\/em>, to squeeze. The Sphinx, if you recall, punished those unable to solve its riddles by strangling\u2014squeezing the air out of them. And if you\u2019ve ever been eight months pregnant, desperately searching for the nearest ladies\u2019 restroom, you\u2019ve done a little squeezing yourself.<\/p>\n

This post is in honor of Roy Blount, Jr., whose birthday it is today, and thanks to whom I discovered this etymological nugget. I first became acquainted with Roy Blount, Jr. through listening to NPR\u2019s \u201cWait Wait, Don\u2019t Tell Me<\/span><\/a>,\u201d a humorous and intelligent Saturday morning current-events quiz show to which I am sufficiently addicted to plan my weekend cooking blitz for its time slot. Blount is one of the participants, and I said to myself, \u201cWho is this smart, funny man with the sexy, crumbly, Southern-accented voice?\u201d and I immediately added him to the list of Guys I Admire, which includes my husband and son (at the top, naturally), Gregor Mendel<\/span><\/a>, and Hektor, hero of Troy, among others.<\/p>\n

Blount was actually born in Indiana, so he must have picked up his Southern accent in high school in Georgia. Besides the vast amount of work he does for radio and numerous periodicals, he\u2019s written plays, screenplays, and song lyrics, and is the author of many works of fiction and non-fiction about (to name a few subjects) sports, politics, gender relations, domestic animals, poetry, and hair. The first book of his I opened was Alphabet Juice<\/em>, a book hard to describe but a must-have for the bookshelf of any language-lover. Therein Blount explores from A to Zyzzyva (a class of weevils) words that intrigue, excite, or annoy him,\u00a0contemplating\u00a0in the process multiple dictionaries, Indo-European roots, and popular culture. Happy Birthday, Roy! How\u2019s this for a birthday present: a \u201croy blount\u201d as a meme<\/em> for \u201ccurious word or phrase worthy of investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Answer: A cow.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s the answer to a question that has probably been puzzling you for some time. What do the Sphinx and the sphincter have in common? Well, they share a root in the Greek verb sphingein, to squeeze. The Sphinx, if you recall, punished those unable to solve its riddles by strangling\u2014squeezing the air out ofRead more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,9,4,17,3,51],"class_list":["post-3006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-illustration","tag-birthday","tag-books","tag-mythology","tag-penink","tag-watercolor","tag-words"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3006"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3015,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3006\/revisions\/3015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eachdayisacelebration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}