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

I think, if I did not know the meaning of the word erudite I would have been in big trouble when I took the College boards back in the 1960s. My how things have changed. Words like that were the easy ones back then.

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

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.

This whole thread and I have neglected to THANK YOU for your service to our children. I am not a parent, but I do value the education of children. Especially reading and writing. So, thank you for what you do.

Someone mentioned art. It's interesting to me that I can't draw stick people in proportion, yet, I always excelled at reading and writing. I'd think one would be somewhat related to the other, as I am a creative writer. Yet my artistic skills are simply abismal, and my reading and writing skills are above average. Well, my reading skills are above average with 95 percent of my reading over the decades. The last ten years of having to look up obscure words from contemporary authors not withstanding!

I think I mentioned this earlier. I do notice a decline in spelling since the advent of online typing. I honestly attribute this to lazyness and a cavalier attitude with the huge volume of internet typing. My typing skills are swift, but the last few decades has seen tens of thousands of emails, blogs and social posts. This volume combined with nobody critiquing posts for grammar have (IMO) made me a careless typist. I think this has contributed to my lack of spelling excellence that was once superior. I sometimes go back and spell-check my typing and check for basic grammar. I am sometimes surprised by my mistakes. Well, at least I catch them when I re-read my typing. Most of the time!

I went to boarding school as i have already said in a prevoius post.

The reason I mention it is that our teachers also boarded and if we had difficulty with our lesson or prep (homework) we could knock on the teachers door in the evening and they were more than happy to give us a quick private lesson for a few minutes. I think they probably respected the kids that had enough serious interest to want to learn.

My point at last is that although i had both English Lit and English Lang as seperate classes and although I thought my English Lang was pretty good. I struggle with my grammar.

I have no idea where a semi colon or colon go, I don't know what a hanging particible is and I tend to use commas when I should use a full stop.

I would really love to be excellent at English grammer. I make out reasonably well and write pretty fair business letters but thats mostly because i spend a lot of time on them and write it so that I don't need any complicated grammar.

Originally Posted by STF

I went to boarding school as i have already said in a prevoius post.

The reason I mention it is that our teachers also boarded and if we had difficulty with our lesson or prep (homework) we could knock on the teachers door in the evening and they were more than happy to give us a quick private lesson for a few minutes. I think they probably respected the kids that had enough serious interest to want to learn.

My point at last is that although i had both English Lit and English Lang as seperate classes and although I thought my English Lang was pretty good. I struggle with my grammar.

I have no idea where a semi colon or colon go, I don't know what a hanging particible is and I tend to use commas when I should use a full stop.

I would really love to be excellent at English grammer. I make out reasonably well and write pretty fair business letters but thats mostly because i spend a lot of time on them and write it so that I don't need any complicated grammar.

Great post, and I fully understand. I fancied myself a budding author when I was a senior in high school, and throughout my undergraduate studies. I never acted on this, and in hindsignt, with a very fruitful business career coming to a close, I'm happy with the outcome of my vocation regardless of the track it took.

If I really push to dissect grammar, I'm in the same boat as you. I may struggle a bit to define "Hanging Participle" because like obscure words that are not common in every day English, how often in your life do you have to define a hanging participle? I do remember one of my high school English teachers complaining that many of us were putting in superfulous commas in our writing. He said something like, "You people think putting in commas everywhere shows how intelligent you are, when in reality it makes you all look like buffoons." He never held back with unsulting us. Not a great way to teach, but that was his style.

What really motivated me to be well read, oddly, was the movie "Patton" with George C. Scott. I remember watching this movie as a young man and thinking how well-versed Patton was. I was totally captivated by his persona on screen, so I reasearched him at the library and was equally as impressed. Apart from being a brilliant millitary commander, he vividly knew the writings of many Roman and Greek authors and could quote them from memory. He was a romantic and knew poetry quite well. He knew Latin and he spoke French. Fluently. I don't know why. but something clicked, and I wanted to be like him. Well, I wanted to be like him outside of a military career.

I dove into the same types of study. I discovered poetry. I read many of the classics, and I struggled through Greek philosphy and Roman literature. I studied Latin in high school. And I took 4 years of high school French and 2 years of college French. I must say this came in handy when I lived in France for a few years after my post grad commencement. Although the Parisian French told me that I spoke with a distinct Canadian accent. I never spent much time in Quebec, so I can only assume this came from immitating my high school French teachers accent whom (I believe) were from Montreal.

I've always felt words should be chosen carefully to not only convey meaning effectively but also to impart an atmosphere or feeling within the reader.

My career in academia is a good example. When you write papers for journals there is a definite "vibe" you need to hit in terms of the way you write and the words you use. You know your audiance is of a similar ilk (else you've chosen the wrong journal!) and the technical words you use have specific meanings that allow you to avoid potentially wordy or convoluted explanation.

When I write lecture notes, depending on who I am writing for (eg a first year service-teaching course versus a masters-level theoretical coursework subject) I will use words to create an "atmosphere" - friendly and approachable for the first-years; cold, austere, uncompromising and severe for the masters students ....

If the "big" words stand out like the proverbial dogs ...., I think it shows the authors are trying too hard to be something they are not, or that they are not understanding their readers' motivations and needs. Words you use need to add something and not be a distraction IMO.

I'm reminded of what one of my old professors once told me: "Don't try to be too clever in your paper. The first time you open your mouth to present it at a conference they'll all know the truth."

And we all know the difference between urbane and erudite: urbane refers to being courteous, refined, and cultured whereas erudite is a two-part epoxy-based adhesive.

James.