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I keep thinking about this because I've lately been reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and it's just ridiculous. I have to look up 1-2 words per sentence sometimes, something I'm only used ...
Question
vocabulary
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T02:41:35Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/7102 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
temporary_user_name
·
2019-12-08T02:41:35Z (over 4 years ago)
I keep thinking about this because I've lately been reading _Blood Meridian_ by Cormac McCarthy, and it's just ridiculous. I have to look up 1-2 words per sentence sometimes, something I'm only used to doing for Joyce. Apparently McCarthy is well known for doing this sort of thing. The book was written in the mid-1980s -- it's modern. But the terms used therein belong to another time, and are mostly unknown to modern English. How do authors pick up such a broad vocabulary of words that they can effectively disguise themselves as a hundred years older than they are? These words can't be used in day-to-day speech; nobody would understand you. If you can't use them, how do you remember them? Examples from _Blood Meridian_: rebozo, shellalegh, hackamore, osnaburg, bungstarter, weskit, jacal, farrier, escopeta, caesura. Not a single one of these words have I ever heard reference to _anywhere else_ in my entire tour of existence.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2013-01-20T17:24:19Z (over 11 years ago)
Original score: 5