Thread: An Observation: The New Breed of Authors Are Using Obscure Words - Page After Page

I dislike being judged on things that use opinion.

I enjoy winning a race that the timer is the only judge.

I had a year of art and the first semester with one teacher I got an A. The second I had another teacher and got a C. I didn't change the teachers did.

I read to page 71 tonight and will now have to read Nights at the Circus.

This seems from the reviews that it was written by one literary professor for another.

Originally Posted by 32t

I dislike being judged on things that use opinion.

I enjoy winning a race that the timer is the only judge.

I had a year of art and the first semester with one teacher I got an A. The second I had another teacher and got a C. I didn't change the teachers did.

I concur. And there can be naturally some subjectivity with art, or even essays. And sadly, I think there are a few teachers who allow personal feelings to influence grades; I believe they are in the minority. For my own part, we are always fine-tuning writing rubrics and trying to make them more quantifiable, as hard as that is to do with writing.

I can't say what our art teachers do; we're all so isolated from each other this year. I even had to be the Grinch and shoot down a department Christmas gathering of 20 which an underling tried to set up without running it past me (yeah, I was PISSED that they put me in that position). Oh, well, we had a very successful Secret Santa gift exchange.

Returning to the OP’s original theme:

It’s not easy to find the word that does exactly what you want it to do and conveys precisely the meaning or nuance you intend. It depends on your own context, personal experience and interpretation. For example, there is a definitely not urban myth about the number of words for snow and ice that the first nation peoples of the north have for snow and ice. They have a many essential words that enable them to precisely describe specific snow and ice conditions (https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia....r-snow-and-ice). We don’t need that level of specificity, so compared to their requirements, our vocabulary is severely lacking and to us, theirs seems excessive and unnecessary.

I really enjoy an author who is able to use the most appropriate word to describe a characteristic, a situation or a phenomenon, but I object to those who use linguistic gymnastics to show off their personal vocabulary.

I am at an age where groping for the right word is becoming a more frequent occurrence so when someone uses a word new to me and I discover that it perfectly fits what the author is trying to describe, it makes me happy.

I've found over the years most folks who have really great vocabularies aren't out to be show offs but that's just the way they speak. They tend to be folks who are really well educated and very well read.

However this entire thread is really very elementary because none of it applies to probably 90 plus percent of the U.S population. When I worked I "got around" and most people I dealt with had vocabularies so limited they simply did not have the ability to express themselves and convey their thoughts. Talking to them was like pulling teeth and I had to help them along.

Once out of their social network and not able to use F.... every other word they were totally tongue tied.

I read voraciously as a young adult. My reading included many of the classics by Hemingway, Huxley, Steinbeck, Thoreau, and Fitzgerald. The list goes on. I was also into Science Fiction as a teen and read Herbert (Dune), Asimov (I Robot), and many others that were popular at the time. The list goes on and on.

I seldom if ever had to look up a word by any of these authors. Mostly "if ever" is closer to the truth. Now, reading contemporary literature, I find myself looking up words that I do not know much more frequently. That's my whole point. These words simply are not in the common vocabulary of most people, highly educated or not. It does make me wonder why this is happening.

Do any of these words that you are having a hard time with have to do with.

1-Shakespeare

2-Violence

3-The Bible

4-Geography

5-Sickness

I could add many more if these don't work.

I think this shows that you are a lay reader and need to practice more to learn the ways of a sophisticated reader!

Originally Posted by 32t

Do any of these words that you are having a hard time with have to do with.

1-Shakespeare

2-Violence

3-The Bible

4-Geography

5-Sickness

I could add many more if these don't work.

I think this shows that you are a lay reader and need to practice more to learn the ways of a sophisticated reader!

No. Not even close. I'm talking generic contemporary literature, as I gave a clear example to early in this thread. When an educated person whom is an avid reader is looking up words on every page from a current novel such as "Into The Wild" by Jon Krakauer, as well and dozens of other, then there is a systemic issue with new authors using obscure vocabulary.

And yet again, just to illustrate my point further, in the current novel "Robert Redford" the Biography by Michael Callan, he uses the phrase "Erudite Innuendo". I querried 24 co-workers on a recent corporate Zoom meeting (all had Bachelor degrees or higher) if they honestly knew the meaning of "Erudite Innuendo". NONE of them did. Not one. Sure, most of us knew what innuendo meant, but not erudite. If you say that you do know this word, then you are either stretching the truth, or you are exceptionally well versed in vocabulary. Or, perhaps you just got lucky with an obscure word phrase. I did NOT know the meaning of the word "Erudite", being honest. Most readers, if they are being honest, would be in the same boat. And this is just one example from dozens throughout the book.

So I'm NOT talking about obscure medical, or any other remote literature. I happen to be in the medical industry, so I'd actually have a larger shot at knowing medical terms than the average reader. I'm talking about common, best-selling, contemporary American literature.

And you mean your example does not relate to my previous post.

We typically use the word rude to mean "discourteous" or "uncouth" but it can also mean "lacking refinement" or "uncivilized"; someone who is erudite, therefore, has been transformed from a roughened or uninformed state to a polished and knowledgeable one through a devotion to learning.

This is quoted from here.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dict...s%20also%20the

I should have added Latin to my previous list!

Thanks for the link, but I would hope after 12 years of primary education, 4 years of undergrad, and 2 years of post graduate, I'd manage the ability to look up a word definition. Let's hope anyway.

The ability to look up a word definition does not relate here. My primary post was to bring attention to the fact that within the past 10 years of reading, I'm now noticing multiple word definition searches, whereas I rarely did word definition searchis with general reading before.