The Lexicon: A Cornucopia of Wonderful Words for the Inquisitive Word Lover

I picked this up on a lark, hoping to find some new and amusing words to help me get through stressful days in the office and . . . well. . . darn it . . . I already know these words.

I write this the day after President Obama finally acknowledged the babbling, screaming yokels and produced his birth form. Are the jackels happy now? Not really. They are tearing the document apart and calling Obama a liar. It's a sad day for America when a president feels the need to bow down to that level. But that is how stupid this country has become. The conservative movement is now in the hands of the Tea Party crackpots and mental giants like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann (hey, how about that for a 2012 ticket!?!). WFB must be spinning in his grave, seeing the witless mouth breathers and hateful 'nabobs of negativity' who've hijacked his party.You may have guessed that I am a liberal to the core but I've always loved to watch, listen to and read WFB. Anything he had to say was pretty interesting to me, purely because of what he said, and, almost as important, the way he said it.I am a long-time "word junkie", but I only recently came across this book, I'm sorry to say. What makes this particular volume truly unique is that the list of words, the definitions of the words, and the all-important citations of the words are all from WFB himself. The wonderful contextual examples all come from the WFB's own writings, and it is obvious that he was comfortable with these difficult words and knew them well enough to use them properly. It's amazing how many of the "hard" words you hear and see and read are actually in this book. When I pick up one of these, I always look for a group of particular words, which, to me, are mandatory for inclusion. These words are: epistomology, inchoate, jejune, orotund, and quotidian. Not surprisingly, all are included here.I would have given the book five stars if (1) it had more words to make it more complete; (2) had pronunciations (I'm guessing that I was comfortable in pronouncing 85-90% of the words, however); and (3) had etymologies of the words (but of course, these can be found in a dictionary).For a "logophile", this is certainly an indispensible book. Too bad that someone didn't have the bright idea of making a DVD or series of DVD's of this book, with WFB the star, simply expounding, in his inimitable way, on the wonders of language. For me, this is one of the better books of this kind mainly because of that piquant WFB touch.

William F. Buckley Jr. was well renowned for his vocabulary, but I am not sure that is a so much complement to him or a reflection of our society's educational inadequacies. Certainly his vocabulary was inferior to that of Shakespeare. You respond `but that was Shakespeare'. To which I must observe that Shakespeare's audience of rough and bawdy tradesmen, housewives and shop owners standing about the stage of the Globe understood and enjoyed every word that flowed from the Bard's pen. Today , many find that word wizard of 400 years past almost unreadable because they must so often have recourse to a dictionary and Buckley was frequently criticized for his use of words that transcended an 8th grade reading level. This book is an amusing tonic for such deplorable ignorance. But do not think this book a comprehensive compilation of all the language's big words; for that, get the American Heritage Dictionary. That is what Mr. Buckley used. No, this is a specific collection of words that he owned and used daily in his writing and that is what makes the book fun. Each word listed is followed by a brief straightforward definition. Then this definition is followed by a sentence or a paragraph from somewhere among Buckley's voluminous verbal outpourings that illustrates how he actually used the word. Mr. Buckley chose these writing samples to be humorous or provocative and to remind us all of the times and circumstances under which he wrote. All the examples make a point and those points demonstrate just what a difference Mr. Buckley's writing made in American politics and polemic. Arnold Roth provided a smattering of what I think are somewhat garish illustrations to demonstrate humorously the meaning of some of the words, those for hemidemisimiquaver and gerrymander stand out. The book is small and should occupy no more than a few hours, but those hours will be well spent. And you will learn some new words and something of Mr. Buckley and his time. Definitely worth the expenditure.

I recently finished David Crystal's "The Story of English in 100 Words," and it prompted my purchase of W.F. Buckley's book, "The Lexicon." As a pretentious student of words, Buckley's book has been a healthy dose of humility to mitigate my hubris. The man could correctly use so many words. I've read several books by Buckley and about Buckley, and watched hours of firing line and his interviews on youtube. With this background, I believe that Buckley really did have a working knowledge of all of the words listed in this wordbook. I've memorized many of these words for graduate school examinations but I have yet to work them into my everyday speech. WFB was brilliant in that regard; erudite to the core. I use this book mostly as a motivator of what is possible. I arduously pick through this book in an attempt to increase my working vocabulary. It's a wonderful book, with a wonderful introduction, and a very brief overview of the how this book came about in the back. This book is a window into the words that Buckley found useful and important. Conservatives and liberals would do well to read and implement this book into their everyday agendas. Regardless of what one may think about Buckley, and his persuasions, this book is so damn good. (I bought the $10 one, not the $4 one, fyi)