Origins of the Word 'Google' - Roy Blount, Jr. November 25, 2008

Favorite:

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2008/11/10/Roy_Blount_Jr_The_Sounds_Roots_and_History_of_Words

Humorist author Roy Blount, Jr. examines the origins of the word "google" - originally spelled "googol" - and the history of its relationship with the world's most popular internet search engine.

-----

Roy Blount, Jr. talks about Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips.

After 40 years of making a living using words in every medium, print or electronic, NPR panelist Blount still can't get over his ABCs. In this work he celebrates the sonic and kinetic energies of letters and their combinations - Book Passage

Roy Blount's writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, Playboy, Vanity Fair, GQ, Rolling Stone, and National Geographic. His work has also been anthologized in such collections as The Best of Modern Humor, The Elvis Reader, The Ultimate Baseball Book, and The Sophisticated Cat.

He is the author of seventeen books, including Crackers (1982), About Three Bricks Shy of a Load (1986), Soupsongs & Webster's Ark (1988), Camels Are Easy, Comedy's Hard (1991), First Hubby (1991), Roy Blount's Book of Southern Humor (1994), which contains overs 150 short stories, sketches, essays, poems, memoirs, and lyrics, Be Sweet: A Memoir (1998), Robert E. Lee (2003), and several books cowritten with Valerie Shaff. Blount currently lives in western Massachusetts and New York City. For a more comprehensive biography see Blount's official Web site.