From: djheydt@kithrup.com

In article ,
William Vetter   wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article ,
>> William Vetter   wrote:
>>> aileuromorphic
>>>
>>> vibrissae
>>>
>>> metapodia
>>>
>>> calcaneus
>>
>> Yes, if they were the right words for the occasion.
>>
>> I recently commented elsethead on David Brin's using words like
>> bromopnean and atrichic, for which he probably could have used
>> "stinky-breathed" and "hairless," at the cost of making the
>> prose a little less distinctive.
>>
>Yeah, I saw that.  That's why I posted this.  Also, no activity here.
>
>When I was in my mid-twenties, I had a book with at least two words on
>every page that sent me to the research library to go through volumes
>of OED for words.  It was a sort of romance novel/space opera hybrid
>where all of the male characters had hair and muscles like Fabio, and
>the writing was flowery.  None of the words were ever there.  I think
>she invented them freely from roots.  At page 50, I asked myself, "Why
>am I doing this?"  So when I try this with my own drafts, or at least
>with something that's available that resembles the thickest dictionary
>possible, and the word isn't there, I ask whether I am punishing my
>younger self.
>
I'm trying and failing to remember who wrote an essay on
vocabulary, specifically in F/SF, and gave the example of a woman
who returned a book to him, saying, "I don't like this.  I have
to look up too many words."  He may have been talking about a
book by A. Merritt, or that may have been in a different
paragraph; but the point he was making was that Merritt's work
was very rich in vocabulary.  I remember a sentence on the order
of " 'Crimson' isn't a word in the standard reader's vocabulary;
'red' isn't a word for Merritt."

The last time I read any Merritt was back in the 1960s. (I forget
the title -- may have been _Ship of Ishtar_ -- but I know the
approximate date because I borrowed it from Bjo Trimble when she
was living in Oakland.)  I wasn't thrown by any of the
vocabulary, but it seemed to have no plot, just a lot of
gorgeously painted dream sequences.  Suum cuique.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress.
Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
 * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)