Aspiring screenwriters take note: A surefire requisite for breaking into the business has, and will likely always be, a love of words—fat, buttery words, like ones the Marx Brothers writer Robert Pirosh wrote about in his 1934 letter to MGM. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Must Love Words”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
The other day on our Facebook page, Jeremy Benstein shared a letter that I’d forgotten about that I like very much, and I wanted to share with you part of it.
It goes like this.
I like words.
I like fat, buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady.
I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straight-laced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory.
I like suave V words, such as svengali, svelte, bravura, verve.
I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty.
I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip.
I like sniggly chuckling words such as callic, gurgle, bubble, and burp.
Wow. Who is that beautiful writer?
That’s really great, right?
Yeah.
His name is Robert Pirosh, or Pirosh, P-I-R-O-S-H.
And you can find the entire text of that letter at lettersofnote.com, which we’ve discussed before on the show.
And this was a letter that he sent around to Hollywood studios in the 1930s when he was trying to find a job.
Then he changed his mind and headed to the West Coast, and he actually ended up getting a job interview because of that letter.
Well, this entire show is a celebration of language, and we’d love to talk with you about it.
Call us at 877-929-9673 or send us an email.
The address is words@waywordradio.org.
