I have always been fascinated by the nuances and flavors that different words have. Speaking several languages, when I have to speak just one and not mix them up come what may, I run often into the frustration of finding that a word from a different language conveys the meaning a lot better than the one in the language I am currently using. Synonyms may convey the same general notion, but the devil is in the details and one choice of word over another can make a great deal of difference. Sometimes we do not realize the difference in conscious thought, but we do feel the emotional effect of those differences regardless. And I like that you mentioned English as an example for your video. I think I have a pretty good grip of it despite it being a foreign language to me. Yet just when I think there isn't much I have left to learn, I get surprised by how much more there is still to discover. Not all English books bring new words, but some do and it's always fun to add to my vocabulary. Byrnie and kirtle being the latest additions, thanks to Philip :))) As a last note, the constant degradation of language is something i have found to be both sad and concerning for a good long while, and it happens everywhere, in every language. With the movie industry replacing literature, and movies aiming at the highest audience possible, the language has gradually been over simplified to meet the standards of their public. And I do not think this is a favor done to anyone. Other than those cashing in on the money the movies make, that is.
@@ACriticalDragon Taxonomy is not my thing 😂, however, volatile might be doing double duty here 😁😁 Plus that's a fight for you and the cape fetishist, the landlocked Doctor F. 🤣
Take your byrnies and dweorgs and shove it, Nemesis. :P I think the thing that saddens me most is that we are either inadvertently or explicitly telling authors to continually simplify their language. The long term effect of this will be the atrophying of our ability to understand the potentialities of language. People have often criticised Fantasy for being simplistic, reductive, and childish, and it seems that we want the genre to become this as a default because we cry 'Pretentiousness' at the first sign of complex or rich language.
@@ACriticalDragon Agreed, though I think there’s still a substantial percentage of fantasy readers who embrace complexity and rich language, not to mention a few of us crazies who love our byrnies!
@@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy Not to mention kirtles. But you hit on my great hope for the genre, that we continue to give space and attention to works that inspire us, challenge us, and that demonstrate what is possible with the medium.
Great breakdown as always! I think a lot of what you discussed applies to the overuse of the term “purple prose” as well. I’d be interested to hear more of your thoughts on that commercialization topic in regards to publishing and other media too.
The commercialisation topic is a huge, nuanced, and complex one. I am far from qualified to dig into it, but I will see if I can find any acquaintances with a specialism in it to have a discussion with.
This is why I am loving Blood Meridian. It really challenges me to think in different ways. It's a completely different experience just because of the language used and the elevation of mundane things to almost biblical importance by the use of "archaic" or "embellished" language. Just incredible.
McCarthy employed a radically distinct style specifically to match his theme, setting, and narrative. It is great writing. Admittedly not my favorite style, but I can still recognize how well he does it. Thanks for watching.
First of all - LOVING the new book shelf. Finally you can display your whole collection. Great video. On this subject, Gene Wolfe in Book of the New Sun use of language and even his elaborate prose and obfuscation could be considered pretentious by many. But, as someone (me) who has a much lower vocabulary, reading experience and intellect , I find his writing utterly engrossing and alluring. It feels alien, a mystery, like I am walking in waters that are too deep. But I like that. It gives me an opportunity to broaden my experience , and appreciation. I can’t read stuff like that all the time. But when I do, it’s very nourishing. On the note you made about newspapers, I would always struggle to accept the level of writing in particularly tabloid newspapers in the uk. Not because they were made to be accessible, that would not bother me, but because that reduction of language deliberately talks down to the reader, in order to influence opinion in a very direct way. The use of bold and italic in tabloids was infuriating to me. Haven’t read a print newspaper in over 20 years so I have no idea how that’s evolved. Great vid.
Gene Wolfe is fantastic. I love how he uses language. On the subject of Tabloids, if it bothered you twenty years ago you might not want to pick up a recent one. It has gotten worse.
Just by watching some of yours & others videos on YT I've been learning new words! I find it a bit sad when I'll say a word that I think is very common & and my co-worker don't understand it. My love of reading is probably the reason. They hate to read. I've also also noticed that my grandmothers childrens books are more 'pretentious' 😅 than the modern same grade level books. I'm sure that doesn't help.
Looking at older works is eye-opening in terms of expected literacy and diction. Children's books from the late 19th and early 20th century frequently use far more complex language than many 'adult' books today.
I remember reading in a Lovecraft story (I think it was 'Call of Cthulhu') "...gibbous moon..." and some other outdated terminologies and it is just as you say. It gives the text a myterious and strange origin. Thank you AP for the video.
Very interesting talk. To the point of simplification of the language in print & movies, I suspect that social media will take the simplification one step further. Having become someone who spends more time reading then I do watching a tv show or movie, I find both lacking when compared to the levels stimulation that can be found in a book, there’s just is no comparison.
Reading, watching, and listening to narrative may all be related, but they each have unique aspects that impact how we engage and imagine the narratives. This might be fun to talk about, thanks for the suggestion.
As a visual artist, I like to think of this simplification trend as though all artists would only draw stick figures. Sure, one can depict the layout of a painting of Hieronymus Bosch that way, but the emotional impact, the colour choices and the sheer drama that seeps from the canvas would be lost. I'm not a native speaker and I am extremely grateful to authors who challenge their readers, because it is so gratifying when you actually know one of those "fancy" words that tend to pop up in a fantasy novel.
That is a great analogy. One I have used before is if every visual artist had to make things photorealistic for every aspect of art. No colour correction or manipulation. No fantastic elements. No surrealism. No changes to proportions to emphasise or de-emphasise. No brush or pencil techniques that are unnecessary for photorealism. No manipulation of perspective. No collages, montages, or multi-sensory art. I think of how sad visual art would be if it were limited in this way.
How great would it be if it became standard practice to include a glossary, not just for made-up fantasy words, or old Gaelic/Latin/etc., but also for obscure English words? How fast people might increase their primary language vocabulary by reading popular fiction! I do like looking a word up online, or in the dictionary, but I don't always because of the hassle of constantly interrupting reading, and I just let context clues suffice. It'd be a lot easier to flip to a shorter list in the back! Actually, E-readers _can_ define a word with a couple clicks, I just rarely use that since I almost always read on paper - but at least good tools are there, if "tools" want to expand their minds. 😏 Unfortunately, attitudes have to change first, and the first author to include that kind of glossary would get many a pretentious label thrown their way, but maybe it could be a growing self-publishing trend, that eventually changes society. We could all be speaking Shakespearean by 2033 and be safe from newspeak! 🤤
I think every time I've described something as pretentious, I'm mostly thinking of the type of person that would generally read it - It's hard to explain. I don't necessarily care for a lot of classic novels, and usually when I describe one of them as being pretentious, I'm mostly thinking about readers who tend to 'look down' on people who read anything other than classics or scholarly work. If I'm thinking or referring to readers who aren't condescending, I'll typically think of the book as more scholarly. I don't really struggle with understanding classic work, but they're still not my preferred style. When someone I'm talking to seems condescending when I express this opinion, I'll admit I've gotten a bit defensive and claimed they're mostly pretentious. But I've also had many conversations where the other person didn't have a haughty attitude about it, and I'd still agree they're typically more scholarly, rather than pretentious.
I try not to be haughty and high-handed, but I know that I can be dismissive upon occasion. For the most part, I try to treat writing and fiction seriously, be it classical, modern, genre, 'literary' etc. because writing can influence us and shape us in ways that we don't notice. So I understand that people think I am pretentious talking about Fantasy books as important texts, but I genuinely believe that the subject is important and should be taken seriously. In saying that, I did hear about someone who on a teaching placement sat in the corner of the room reading 19th Century French poetry instead of engaging with the English lessons in the class... even I find that pretentious.
@ACriticalDragon No, I definitely wouldn't describe you as haughty! I appreciate the scholarly approach to fantasy to show that it should be taken seriously! I never get the feeling that you're looking down on anyone if they choose to read something more general or modern sometimes. The best example that comes to mind was a guy in my college class. I can't remember what fantasy book I was reading at first, but once I finished it, I felt like I needed a 'palate cleanser'. I started reading a general fiction novel that centered on family secrets - something that would be an interesting but quick read and wouldn't take a lot of memory or energy, haha. He said he was 'surprised I'd read drivel like that', that I was wasting time, and should read something worthwhile like Moby Dick or Frankenstein. Definitely pretentious!
@ravenbellebooks5665 Sometimes we want a 7 course meal, sometimes we want a cheeseburger and fries, and sometimes we want candy floss and marshmallows. It is important to have variety and fun. Reading is a pleasure, but what is pleasurable is going to vary according to the individual and the mood that they are in. But it is always important to remember that both Shakespeare and Dickens wrote to entertain the masses.
Great video. Even though I consistently disagree with your views on authorial intent and its importance, there is always something illuminating to take away from your videos.Thank you for making them.
Well I am glad that something is useful in the videos even if you disagree. That is the cornerstone of discourse and learning. I am certainly not the authority on this stuff, and I can only share my perspective and thoughts on the matter, just like anyone else. So thank you for watching, I greatly appreciate it.
@@ACriticalDragon I have certainly learned a lot from your videos. It's helped me figure out and develop my own views on things, mostly because of the humility with which you present your views (especially compared to the majority of content on this platform). I used to be pretty bad at engaging with criticism online, but recently your channel has helped me approach things much more critically and, by extension, fairly. Keep up the great work.
This is a brilliant video. I have been accused of being pretentious in the past which has really turned me off writing anything other than the odd poem. I think the criticism is probably fair though. My lyrical style of writing often includes biblical, philosophical and poetic language which is seemingly a huge turn off for folk I know.
I am sorry that anyone has ever discouraged you from writing. My only advice would be, if you enjoy writing then you should write. Many authors talk about writing the stories that they wanted to read and couldn't find. If you want to write poems and stories in that style because you would love to read them in that style, then that is the main thing. Writing to a presumed patterns, norms, and assumed audience ability might be more profitable in the short-term, but there is no guarantee. Writing the thing that makes your soul happy might not be profitable but at the very least it made you happy to do it.
@@ACriticalDragon Truly appreciate you taking the time to reply. Often on social media there is a sense you are talking into the void. That's not to say I ever expect a response as time is finite, it's precious. I think I have unknowingly been on a journey back to writing. This video was exactly what I needed.
@@plumeofsmoke2871 I don't always have time to reply to everyone, but I do try. Plus, the world needs more artists, authors, poets, and dreamers. Good luck with your writing.
Discussions about pretentiousness that I encounter in online forums are often so vexing for me, AP. Most of the fantasy that I love is dismissed as pretentious by so many other readers. And often with a real feeling of anger behind it. The experience of a writer being pretentious generates a real anger in people, the same people who are also very quick to denote writing as pretentious. I don't really understand that anger, but it is very present.
Ah yes, the 'you are just trying to sound smart' brigade. I don't know if this is a modern phenomenon or if it has always been there, but it seems to me that many people take finding out that they are not the smartest or most well read person in the room as a personal affront instead of the reality that we are constantly surrounding by people that know more than us, that have read more than us, and that have different levels of expertise in areas we don't have. We can either look at this as an opportunity to learn, or we can act offended that 'how dare someone have a more expansive vocabulary and demonstrate knowledge that I don't have.' I am constantly humbled and impressed by book fans who know texts in a way that I do not. They are brilliant to talk to when they are willing to share and encourage knowledge of the texts they love. We all end up benefiting from that.
What an incredibly nuanced discussion of language choices in narrative! I’ve been sticking to more accessible modern sff recently but I’m very curious to try out something a bit more linguistically challenging like the Wars of Light and Shadow to experience a different flavor of modern fantasy.
There are some great 'accessible' fantasies, and there is nothing wrong with reading and enjoying them, but as you say, they are just one flavor of fantasy. Even within the genre there is a huge variety of narrative styles, and the more we experience the broader our knowledge of the genre becomes. When that is coupled with reading other genres, and literature from other time periods, we can become for more discerning in understanding our own tastes, as well as develop our abilities to read and appreciate literature that deviates from our accustomed fare.
I am really enjoying your Readers series. In 1984, I found the control of the State through the elimination of words much more disturbing than the idea of “big brother is watching”. Civil discourse and the articulation of ideas are dependent on our ability to communicate ideas and concepts using the full breadth of our language. What would be to impact to society if a simple word like “no” was replaced with “yes minus minus”?
Great might be overselling it. But it is fun to talk to the camera and try to work my thoughts out as I go. To be honest, a lot of my videos are me sitting down to talk out something that is buzzing around in my head.
My idea of pretentious writing has changed over the years. I think a lot of people just get angry at something written "over their heads" and so they label it pretentious, and these days when so much writing caters to a lower common denominator anything written to a higher level gets that label among certain sets of fans. I know I've felt that way in the past, even though I was fairly widely read in older literature, when I read modern and post-modern lit not because of vocabulary but because of the styles with which some is written. Heck, I still catch myself doing it with some stylistic choices like those of Cormac McCarthy when I lose all patience with it. I'm not sure where to draw the line with the description pretentious because I think most of what is described as that is not. These days I think of it more as a preference on someone's part and try not to use that word at all.
Great points. The fascinating thing when we encounter something that is 'written over our heads' is how infrequently we view ourselves as lacking the sufficient knowledge, and how often we accuse the writing/author of being in the wrong. It can be difficult to admit that we are the issue, but once our egos take enough beatings it becomes easier. 🤣🤣
My feeling when I hear people complaining about purple prose is always that limiting the English language in books to the most commonly used words is like limiting a painter to the primary colors, a huge waste of vast resources. Granted, there are cases where a thesaurus word pops out like a sore thumb because the context doesn't support it, but when you find a writer who can build imagery with the sound and rhythm of words there's nothing like it.
Exactly. There is room enough for a whole host of styles in every genre. It is brilliant when an author matches style, tone, diction level, structure, and everything else to the content, whatever those choices might be. Thanks for watching.
If you find Shakespeare's 40k words vocabulary impressive, take a moment to consider those of us, especially writers, who are fluent in other languages. My native French vocabulary is above 35k, my English one is under 30k (with a lot of cross-over from the thousands of words English has borrowed from the French), on top of that, I speak Spanish, Japanese, German, Latin, Hungarian and Italian to lower degree but with at least a few hundred words of vocabulary for each. It's crazy that the brain can deal with all those words. The only issue I have is sometimes mixing words from a language to another.
A friend of mine from university worked as a translator. He spoke multiple languages fluently and had conversational levels in several more. It is to my shame that my French and German have fallen into such disuse.
Sorry, also meant to say, I am always impressed with multi lingual speakers. It is something that I always struggled with, so I am very envious of your command of other languages.
Back in the medieval days it would have been a priceless skill. Now with modern technologies, it is much less so. Still, a century ago, I could have been a good spy. I just have to work on my German tonic accent ;) @@ACriticalDragon
This discussion made me think of a scene I loved in the movie Definitely, Maybe , a romantic comedy of all things. it goes -- "The most endangered species in our nation isn't a big woodpecker or some freshwater fish. It's the tongue in our heads! Listen to the truncated bastard language of today. The average vocabulary is a third of what it was 100 years ago. Words fall out of our mouths and die at our feet! The landscape of vocabulary is being hacked down and grubbed up by the dribble of pop culture, poisoned by lazy obscenity. Infantilized by a youth-obsessed media." I will note that the line is delivered by a college professor who is played like a pretentious asshole. Which I find to make it even sweeter for this discussion. Ha ha. At the end of the day if a writer makes me look up words it means I am learning. With the exception of Rothfuss. I will say his writing comes across as pretentious because I have heard him speak many times, and he answers the "intention" problem. He loves him some him and he comes across as someone who thinks he is smarter than everyone else and is God's gift to readers. So I can't help but see that attitude in his writing as well, knowing who it comes from. Thanks for the fun video, AP. Cheers.
While I have some sympathy with the college professor character (whom I may resemble in my more ranty moments), we all realise that language evolves and changes. It is an unavoidable fact. It is more that I am disheartened by the wholesale adoption of the attitude that the reduction of vocabularies is a necessary and welcome act. That we should celebrate everything being brought down, instead of looking for ways to elevate everyone to new heights. Change and evolution shouldn't mean reduction, but a perennial cycle of pruning and growth. Words falling in and out of favour. If we start viewing language as only the bare minimum necessary we lose sight of nuance, subtlety, and complexity, and potentially may start to reduce our abilities to think creatively as we lack the words to properly articulate complex thought. But hopefully that is a far off dystopia.
I wonder how much of Shakespeare’s larger vocabulary is due to a compression of language over time. An easy example is you/your. Shakespearean English had those, as well as thee, thy, thou, thine which immediately triples the count. This is not to disparage the bard, I’m an outspoken Shakespeare lover in my life, but I wonder if we’re comparing apples and oranges when we compare his works to modern literature.
I was using it as an easy comparator to put modern vocabularies in context. Shakespeare was understood by the common person, not just the well educated, and he invented words including nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives. So even shortening his count by 500 to take account of potential grammatical varieties, he is still in excess of modern graduate level vocabularies. Plus, his works were understood by the common popular audience. Additionally he wasn't ridiculed for stretching the language, for broadening the vocabulary beyond common usage, he was celebrated for it. The estimates for his personal vocabulary extend beyond what he used in plays and poetry. He is credited with coining at least a few thousand words, some that we still use today. Fast forward to today and we have accusations that anything that goes beyond common usage is extravagant, pretentious, and showing off. So no, I don't think it is comparing apples to oranges. I think it is pointing out that we, with our vaunted modern education, unparalleled access to a multitude of texts unheard in all but the richest libraries. used to have multiple varieties of apples and now we have six commercial varieties and complain if people dare to use any of the others. English as a language extends to around the 500,000 word mark at generous estimates. Given the various dialects and regional varieties, it is an enormously rich and complex corpus.
@@ACriticalDragon apologies, I think I might have missed your point. I’m used to seeing the 40,000 number used to disparage modern people as a whole, rather than audiences. Because of what I pointed out above I think I’ve developed a trigger response to seeing it used 😅😅 I completely agree with the point regarding the backlash against authors using wider ranging vocabularies. Then again, I’m an Erikson reader, so that maybe isn’t a surprise.
The modern world is much too eager to coddle people and expect too little of them, and the trend of dumbing down young adult or general 'genre' fiction is a good example- it assumes that young or perhaps less educated people are incapable of learning and should not be presented with anything they may be unfamiliar with. As someone who's not a native English speaker, I've never seen elaborate writing as 'pretentious'. Rather, I see unfamiliar words and sentence structures as a challenge and a way to learn more about a language, given that all the information is readily accessible nowadays thanks to the internet. I love how Tolkien, for example, plays with the diction levels of his characters and how they can vary depending on the situation, and even the style of the narration always adjusts to the tone of a given scene and chapter. And it's not just archaic words but also delightfully old-fashioned ways of constructing sentences ("But no living man am I!"). If you had everyone speaking modern English, or modern English embellished with one or two archaisms here and there, a lot of that linguistic dimension to the story and characterization would be lost. Yet a lot of modern fantasy is like that, and it just feels flat and flavorless as a result. I'd say that writing is only pretentious when the author is trying to use archaic or formal language but are clearly doing it with an incomplete command of the archaic style they're trying to emulate, such as the often incorrect usage of "thou/thee", "whomst", and so on. Not counting when this is done to achieve an effect (e.g. to make a character seem pretentious), of course.
I think that the reduction of the number of big publishers has impacted this as well because it forces narratives to be more accessible in order to be more commercially viable. But those are great points. Thank you.
According to OED, there are about 171,000 words currently in use. And another 47,000 which have fallen out of use. So Shakespeare’s 40K covers only about 1/4 to 1/5th of what’s in the dictionary (which of course is behind the times, and does not include many neologisms). Vocabulary is one aspect, but it can work the other way. Hemingway’s pared down style and vocabulary can also feel pretentious, in the sense that it feels unnatural with all those conjunctions. It comes across as a kind of mask. Many people would say the same about James Ellroy, with his rapid fire, clipped style, eschewing connective words, etc…. The vocabulary is pretty simple, but the writing is highly stylized, and thus can be seen as pretentious. For me, Cormac McCarthy’s refusal to follow punctuation conventions strikes me as extremely pretentious and off putting. And look at the following, somewhat famous example. The author has pretty much decided that he has outgrown the need for writing sentences. An entire paragraph with perhaps only one single subject/verb/object construction. The vocabulary is middling, but the effect, especially for its time, was quite pretentious: LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln�s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes � gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another�s umbrellas in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
Deviation from standard convention for artistic effect seems to be the thing that people think of as 'pretentious', and yet we all know that is often at the heart of some of the most important works. From how many use the term the deciding factor appears to be whether the person enjoyed the choice. I completely agree that alterations to standard grammar can often be perceived as pretentious, but McCarthy and Dickens both had reasons for the choice that tie to theme, tone, atmosphere etc. So the decision about whether the choices are 'pretentious' seems to remain with the individual as a question of taste and preference.
Everyone whose writing is above the diction level of a 5th grader is pretentious, at least thats what I remember from one of your other videos :P How wonderful that everything is just that simple
A lot of newspapers and news programmes aim at a reading level of between 8-10 years old. It is no surprise, although somewhat depressing, that fiction is following this trend.
@ACriticalDragon English isn't my first language and even though my active vocabulary is rather small by my own estimate, my passiv vocabulary is a lot better and even as a none native speaker I have read books obviously aimed at an adult audience (due to topic and violence) which made me think "wait, why does this feel so simplistic"... pretty sad
I have read a lot of US Civil War history and agreed the language seems almost aristocratic in its formalities and use of Big Words. Or the dialogue Deadwood with its poetic profanities. I made the comment elsewhere that I believe this is an issue with teaching the 'classics' where the English used is almost a foreign languange in its terms and structure.
Dear Eric, It has been months since we last corresponded. Morale here on the front lines has descended to its very nadir. Doctor Fantasy has maliciously slandered mine good name at every turn. Can none see his mellifluousness disguises a blaggard's soul? What foulness he disseminates with every breath, yet all take it as mana from the heavens. Even the threat of the naughtiest of steps has lost its sting against such callous depravity. However, I willst persevere in mine endeavours, and confront his devious machinations until my very last breath. Stay steadfast in the battle, Eric. There is no telling whensoever the front may shift toward your domicile. With regards, A Critical Dragon, esquire.
I honestly don't understand why obscure or specific words are more taboo now that 100 years ago. You're literally one-click away from the definition. You don't need to crack open one of grandpa's five limited dictionaries anymore. The attention economy is ever more exacting.
But we have to balance the immersion of reading against the education of the reader. I think we can all understand the frustration of having to stop reading to look something up. Then again, literacy is a process and journey with no end point. I think that we sometimes overestimate our command of a language and it can be a rude awakening to find out we don't know as much as we thought we did. So we either accept that lesson and learn from it, or we take the position that the author used too complicated language. But that line will be different for every reader, and we all have different areas of knowledge. And this is just one aspect that impacts our reading experience.
Guess Who? 😂 Through daily proximity to the great slabs of stone, the faces of the Grey Scrubbers had become like slabs themselves. There was no expression whatever upon the eighteen faces, unless the lack of expression is in itself an expression. They were simply slabs that the Grey Scrubbers spoke from occasionally, stared from incessantly, heard with, hardly ever. They were traditionally deaf. The eyes were there, small and flat as coins, and the colour of the walls themselves, as though during the long hours of professional staring the grey stone had at last reflected itself indelibly once and for all. Yes, the eyes were there, thirty-six of them and the eighteen noses were there, and the lines of the mouths that resembled the harsh cracks that divided the stone slabs, they were there too. Although nothing physical was missing from any one of their eighteen faces yet it would be impossible to perceive the faintest sign of animation and, even if a basinful of their features had been shaken together and if each feature had been picked out at random and stuck upon some dummy-head of wax at any capricious spot or angle, it would have made no difference, for even the most fantastic, the most ingenious of arrangements could not have tempted into life a design whose component parts were dead. In all, counting the ears, which on occasion may be monstrously expressive, the one hundred and eight features were unable, at the best of times, to muster between them, individually or taken _en masse_, the faintest shadow of anything that might hint at the workings of what lay beneath.
It says, "AP recently had to move continent and the image of empty bookcases was depressing. So as he had to use a virtual background and talks about books all the time, he chose a picture of a library. "
Freshet* (not freshlet) 🙃
Well that's embarrassing. 🤣🤣🤣
Guess who's brain combined streamlet and freshet?
@@ACriticalDragonFreshet can also refer to flooding, but Noah's Freshet doesn't have the same ring to it... 😂
I have always been fascinated by the nuances and flavors that different words have. Speaking several languages, when I have to speak just one and not mix them up come what may, I run often into the frustration of finding that a word from a different language conveys the meaning a lot better than the one in the language I am currently using. Synonyms may convey the same general notion, but the devil is in the details and one choice of word over another can make a great deal of difference. Sometimes we do not realize the difference in conscious thought, but we do feel the emotional effect of those differences regardless.
And I like that you mentioned English as an example for your video. I think I have a pretty good grip of it despite it being a foreign language to me. Yet just when I think there isn't much I have left to learn, I get surprised by how much more there is still to discover. Not all English books bring new words, but some do and it's always fun to add to my vocabulary. Byrnie and kirtle being the latest additions, thanks to Philip :)))
As a last note, the constant degradation of language is something i have found to be both sad and concerning for a good long while, and it happens everywhere, in every language. With the movie industry replacing literature, and movies aiming at the highest audience possible, the language has gradually been over simplified to meet the standards of their public. And I do not think this is a favor done to anyone. Other than those cashing in on the money the movies make, that is.
Top shelf discussion from our favourite loquacious volatile. 😁
At least you avoided calling me a reptile. 😁
@@ACriticalDragon Taxonomy is not my thing 😂, however, volatile might be doing double duty here 😁😁
Plus that's a fight for you and the cape fetishist, the landlocked Doctor F. 🤣
How many of those forty thousand words did Shakespeare just make up? 😁 This was a lot of fun to listen to. Cheers, A.P.!
Take your byrnies and dweorgs and shove it, Nemesis. :P
I think the thing that saddens me most is that we are either inadvertently or explicitly telling authors to continually simplify their language. The long term effect of this will be the atrophying of our ability to understand the potentialities of language.
People have often criticised Fantasy for being simplistic, reductive, and childish, and it seems that we want the genre to become this as a default because we cry 'Pretentiousness' at the first sign of complex or rich language.
@@ACriticalDragon Agreed, though I think there’s still a substantial percentage of fantasy readers who embrace complexity and rich language, not to mention a few of us crazies who love our byrnies!
@@PhilipChaseTheBestofFantasy Not to mention kirtles.
But you hit on my great hope for the genre, that we continue to give space and attention to works that inspire us, challenge us, and that demonstrate what is possible with the medium.
@@ACriticalDragon Mark my words: Kirtles will make a major fashion comeback!
I predict the fall season 2024 is being earmarked for the Kirtle comeback. It will be the fashion event of the century.
Great breakdown as always! I think a lot of what you discussed applies to the overuse of the term “purple prose” as well.
I’d be interested to hear more of your thoughts on that commercialization topic in regards to publishing and other media too.
The commercialisation topic is a huge, nuanced, and complex one. I am far from qualified to dig into it, but I will see if I can find any acquaintances with a specialism in it to have a discussion with.
This is why I am loving Blood Meridian. It really challenges me to think in different ways. It's a completely different experience just because of the language used and the elevation of mundane things to almost biblical importance by the use of "archaic" or "embellished" language. Just incredible.
McCarthy employed a radically distinct style specifically to match his theme, setting, and narrative. It is great writing.
Admittedly not my favorite style, but I can still recognize how well he does it.
Thanks for watching.
First of all - LOVING the new book shelf. Finally you can display your whole collection. Great video. On this subject, Gene Wolfe in Book of the New Sun use of language and even his elaborate prose and obfuscation could be considered pretentious by many. But, as someone (me) who has a much lower vocabulary, reading experience and intellect , I find his writing utterly engrossing and alluring. It feels alien, a mystery, like I am walking in waters that are too deep. But I like that. It gives me an opportunity to broaden my experience , and appreciation. I can’t read stuff like that all the time. But when I do, it’s very nourishing. On the note you made about newspapers, I would always struggle to accept the level of writing in particularly tabloid newspapers in the uk. Not because they were made to be accessible, that would not bother me, but because that reduction of language deliberately talks down to the reader, in order to influence opinion in a very direct way. The use of bold and italic in tabloids was infuriating to me. Haven’t read a print newspaper in over 20 years so I have no idea how that’s evolved. Great vid.
Gene Wolfe is fantastic. I love how he uses language.
On the subject of Tabloids, if it bothered you twenty years ago you might not want to pick up a recent one. It has gotten worse.
@ACriticalDragon hoping fo some Gene Wolfe content for yourself on the future
Just by watching some of yours & others videos on YT I've been learning new words!
I find it a bit sad when I'll say a word that I think is very common & and my co-worker don't understand it. My love of reading is probably the reason. They hate to read.
I've also also noticed that my grandmothers childrens books are more 'pretentious' 😅 than the modern same grade level books. I'm sure that doesn't help.
Looking at older works is eye-opening in terms of expected literacy and diction. Children's books from the late 19th and early 20th century frequently use far more complex language than many 'adult' books today.
I remember reading in a Lovecraft story (I think it was 'Call of Cthulhu') "...gibbous moon..." and some other outdated terminologies and it is just as you say. It gives the text a myterious and strange origin. Thank you AP for the video.
Lovecraft, for all the issues with his personal beliefs, is a fascinating writer in terms of using language to evoke atmosphere and insanity.
Very interesting talk. To the point of simplification of the language in print & movies, I suspect that social media will take the simplification one step further.
Having become someone who spends more time reading then I do watching a tv show or movie, I find both lacking when compared to the levels stimulation that can be found in a book, there’s just is no comparison.
Reading, watching, and listening to narrative may all be related, but they each have unique aspects that impact how we engage and imagine the narratives.
This might be fun to talk about, thanks for the suggestion.
As a visual artist, I like to think of this simplification trend as though all artists would only draw stick figures. Sure, one can depict the layout of a painting of Hieronymus Bosch that way, but the emotional impact, the colour choices and the sheer drama that seeps from the canvas would be lost.
I'm not a native speaker and I am extremely grateful to authors who challenge their readers, because it is so gratifying when you actually know one of those "fancy" words that tend to pop up in a fantasy novel.
That is a great analogy. One I have used before is if every visual artist had to make things photorealistic for every aspect of art. No colour correction or manipulation. No fantastic elements. No surrealism. No changes to proportions to emphasise or de-emphasise. No brush or pencil techniques that are unnecessary for photorealism. No manipulation of perspective. No collages, montages, or multi-sensory art.
I think of how sad visual art would be if it were limited in this way.
@@ACriticalDragon It's like those prompts that go like, "You can only hear one song for the rest of your life - choose". Scary!
How great would it be if it became standard practice to include a glossary, not just for made-up fantasy words, or old Gaelic/Latin/etc., but also for obscure English words? How fast people might increase their primary language vocabulary by reading popular fiction!
I do like looking a word up online, or in the dictionary, but I don't always because of the hassle of constantly interrupting reading, and I just let context clues suffice. It'd be a lot easier to flip to a shorter list in the back!
Actually, E-readers _can_ define a word with a couple clicks, I just rarely use that since I almost always read on paper - but at least good tools are there, if "tools" want to expand their minds. 😏
Unfortunately, attitudes have to change first, and the first author to include that kind of glossary would get many a pretentious label thrown their way, but maybe it could be a growing self-publishing trend, that eventually changes society. We could all be speaking Shakespearean by 2033 and be safe from newspeak! 🤤
Personally I have always loved looking up words I didn't recognise. It is so much fun to learn new ways to express yourself.
@@ACriticalDragon Oh yeah - I'm not sure how many of them I remember as my brain ages, but I pick up what I can.
great chat, thanks AP!
my exception to the rule: Frank Herbert, but i’m fairly certain he wanted to come across as pretentious.
Wilde and Joyce have their moments 😁
I think every time I've described something as pretentious, I'm mostly thinking of the type of person that would generally read it - It's hard to explain. I don't necessarily care for a lot of classic novels, and usually when I describe one of them as being pretentious, I'm mostly thinking about readers who tend to 'look down' on people who read anything other than classics or scholarly work. If I'm thinking or referring to readers who aren't condescending, I'll typically think of the book as more scholarly.
I don't really struggle with understanding classic work, but they're still not my preferred style. When someone I'm talking to seems condescending when I express this opinion, I'll admit I've gotten a bit defensive and claimed they're mostly pretentious. But I've also had many conversations where the other person didn't have a haughty attitude about it, and I'd still agree they're typically more scholarly, rather than pretentious.
I try not to be haughty and high-handed, but I know that I can be dismissive upon occasion. For the most part, I try to treat writing and fiction seriously, be it classical, modern, genre, 'literary' etc. because writing can influence us and shape us in ways that we don't notice.
So I understand that people think I am pretentious talking about Fantasy books as important texts, but I genuinely believe that the subject is important and should be taken seriously.
In saying that, I did hear about someone who on a teaching placement sat in the corner of the room reading 19th Century French poetry instead of engaging with the English lessons in the class... even I find that pretentious.
@ACriticalDragon No, I definitely wouldn't describe you as haughty! I appreciate the scholarly approach to fantasy to show that it should be taken seriously! I never get the feeling that you're looking down on anyone if they choose to read something more general or modern sometimes.
The best example that comes to mind was a guy in my college class. I can't remember what fantasy book I was reading at first, but once I finished it, I felt like I needed a 'palate cleanser'. I started reading a general fiction novel that centered on family secrets - something that would be an interesting but quick read and wouldn't take a lot of memory or energy, haha.
He said he was 'surprised I'd read drivel like that', that I was wasting time, and should read something worthwhile like Moby Dick or Frankenstein. Definitely pretentious!
@ravenbellebooks5665 Sometimes we want a 7 course meal, sometimes we want a cheeseburger and fries, and sometimes we want candy floss and marshmallows. It is important to have variety and fun. Reading is a pleasure, but what is pleasurable is going to vary according to the individual and the mood that they are in.
But it is always important to remember that both Shakespeare and Dickens wrote to entertain the masses.
@@ACriticalDragon Very well said!
Great video. Even though I consistently disagree with your views on authorial intent and its importance, there is always something illuminating to take away from your videos.Thank you for making them.
Well I am glad that something is useful in the videos even if you disagree. That is the cornerstone of discourse and learning. I am certainly not the authority on this stuff, and I can only share my perspective and thoughts on the matter, just like anyone else.
So thank you for watching, I greatly appreciate it.
@@ACriticalDragon I have certainly learned a lot from your videos. It's helped me figure out and develop my own views on things, mostly because of the humility with which you present your views (especially compared to the majority of content on this platform). I used to be pretty bad at engaging with criticism online, but recently your channel has helped me approach things much more critically and, by extension, fairly. Keep up the great work.
This is a brilliant video. I have been accused of being pretentious in the past which has really turned me off writing anything other than the odd poem. I think the criticism is probably fair though. My lyrical style of writing often includes biblical, philosophical and poetic language which is seemingly a huge turn off for folk I know.
I am sorry that anyone has ever discouraged you from writing. My only advice would be, if you enjoy writing then you should write. Many authors talk about writing the stories that they wanted to read and couldn't find. If you want to write poems and stories in that style because you would love to read them in that style, then that is the main thing. Writing to a presumed patterns, norms, and assumed audience ability might be more profitable in the short-term, but there is no guarantee. Writing the thing that makes your soul happy might not be profitable but at the very least it made you happy to do it.
@@ACriticalDragon Truly appreciate you taking the time to reply. Often on social media there is a sense you are talking into the void. That's not to say I ever expect a response as time is finite, it's precious. I think I have unknowingly been on a journey back to writing. This video was exactly what I needed.
@@plumeofsmoke2871 I don't always have time to reply to everyone, but I do try.
Plus, the world needs more artists, authors, poets, and dreamers.
Good luck with your writing.
Discussions about pretentiousness that I encounter in online forums are often so vexing for me, AP. Most of the fantasy that I love is dismissed as pretentious by so many other readers. And often with a real feeling of anger behind it. The experience of a writer being pretentious generates a real anger in people, the same people who are also very quick to denote writing as pretentious. I don't really understand that anger, but it is very present.
Ah yes, the 'you are just trying to sound smart' brigade. I don't know if this is a modern phenomenon or if it has always been there, but it seems to me that many people take finding out that they are not the smartest or most well read person in the room as a personal affront instead of the reality that we are constantly surrounding by people that know more than us, that have read more than us, and that have different levels of expertise in areas we don't have. We can either look at this as an opportunity to learn, or we can act offended that 'how dare someone have a more expansive vocabulary and demonstrate knowledge that I don't have.' I am constantly humbled and impressed by book fans who know texts in a way that I do not. They are brilliant to talk to when they are willing to share and encourage knowledge of the texts they love. We all end up benefiting from that.
Very interesting video, thanks for that, as always
You are very welcome. Thank you for watching.
What an incredibly nuanced discussion of language choices in narrative! I’ve been sticking to more accessible modern sff recently but I’m very curious to try out something a bit more linguistically challenging like the Wars of Light and Shadow to experience a different flavor of modern fantasy.
There are some great 'accessible' fantasies, and there is nothing wrong with reading and enjoying them, but as you say, they are just one flavor of fantasy. Even within the genre there is a huge variety of narrative styles, and the more we experience the broader our knowledge of the genre becomes. When that is coupled with reading other genres, and literature from other time periods, we can become for more discerning in understanding our own tastes, as well as develop our abilities to read and appreciate literature that deviates from our accustomed fare.
@@ACriticalDragon Amen! Thanks as always for the considered response!
I am really enjoying your Readers series. In 1984, I found the control of the State through the elimination of words much more disturbing than the idea of “big brother is watching”. Civil discourse and the articulation of ideas are dependent on our ability to communicate ideas and concepts using the full breadth of our language. What would be to impact to society if a simple word like “no” was replaced with “yes minus minus”?
That is crimethink. Report to the joycamp. Big Brother has spoken. 😂😂
This was actually great and eye-opening.
I am glad that you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching.
Great shoot from the hip video!
Great might be overselling it. But it is fun to talk to the camera and try to work my thoughts out as I go.
To be honest, a lot of my videos are me sitting down to talk out something that is buzzing around in my head.
@@ACriticalDragon It's a nice avenue to have access to. Plus an audience to discuss it makes it all the more worthwhile.
My idea of pretentious writing has changed over the years. I think a lot of people just get angry at something written "over their heads" and so they label it pretentious, and these days when so much writing caters to a lower common denominator anything written to a higher level gets that label among certain sets of fans. I know I've felt that way in the past, even though I was fairly widely read in older literature, when I read modern and post-modern lit not because of vocabulary but because of the styles with which some is written. Heck, I still catch myself doing it with some stylistic choices like those of Cormac McCarthy when I lose all patience with it.
I'm not sure where to draw the line with the description pretentious because I think most of what is described as that is not. These days I think of it more as a preference on someone's part and try not to use that word at all.
Great points. The fascinating thing when we encounter something that is 'written over our heads' is how infrequently we view ourselves as lacking the sufficient knowledge, and how often we accuse the writing/author of being in the wrong.
It can be difficult to admit that we are the issue, but once our egos take enough beatings it becomes easier. 🤣🤣
My feeling when I hear people complaining about purple prose is always that limiting the English language in books to the most commonly used words is like limiting a painter to the primary colors, a huge waste of vast resources. Granted, there are cases where a thesaurus word pops out like a sore thumb because the context doesn't support it, but when you find a writer who can build imagery with the sound and rhythm of words there's nothing like it.
Exactly. There is room enough for a whole host of styles in every genre. It is brilliant when an author matches style, tone, diction level, structure, and everything else to the content, whatever those choices might be.
Thanks for watching.
If you find Shakespeare's 40k words vocabulary impressive, take a moment to consider those of us, especially writers, who are fluent in other languages.
My native French vocabulary is above 35k, my English one is under 30k (with a lot of cross-over from the thousands of words English has borrowed from the French), on top of that, I speak Spanish, Japanese, German, Latin, Hungarian and Italian to lower degree but with at least a few hundred words of vocabulary for each. It's crazy that the brain can deal with all those words. The only issue I have is sometimes mixing words from a language to another.
A friend of mine from university worked as a translator. He spoke multiple languages fluently and had conversational levels in several more. It is to my shame that my French and German have fallen into such disuse.
Sorry, also meant to say, I am always impressed with multi lingual speakers. It is something that I always struggled with, so I am very envious of your command of other languages.
Back in the medieval days it would have been a priceless skill. Now with modern technologies, it is much less so. Still, a century ago, I could have been a good spy. I just have to work on my German tonic accent ;) @@ACriticalDragon
This discussion made me think of a scene I loved in the movie Definitely, Maybe , a romantic comedy of all things. it goes -- "The most endangered species in our nation isn't a big woodpecker or some freshwater fish. It's the tongue in our heads! Listen to the truncated bastard language of today. The average vocabulary is a third of what it was 100 years ago. Words fall out of our mouths and die at our feet! The landscape of vocabulary is being hacked down and grubbed up by the dribble of pop culture, poisoned by lazy obscenity. Infantilized by a youth-obsessed media." I will note that the line is delivered by a college professor who is played like a pretentious asshole. Which I find to make it even sweeter for this discussion. Ha ha. At the end of the day if a writer makes me look up words it means I am learning. With the exception of Rothfuss. I will say his writing comes across as pretentious because I have heard him speak many times, and he answers the "intention" problem. He loves him some him and he comes across as someone who thinks he is smarter than everyone else and is God's gift to readers. So I can't help but see that attitude in his writing as well, knowing who it comes from. Thanks for the fun video, AP. Cheers.
While I have some sympathy with the college professor character (whom I may resemble in my more ranty moments), we all realise that language evolves and changes. It is an unavoidable fact. It is more that I am disheartened by the wholesale adoption of the attitude that the reduction of vocabularies is a necessary and welcome act. That we should celebrate everything being brought down, instead of looking for ways to elevate everyone to new heights. Change and evolution shouldn't mean reduction, but a perennial cycle of pruning and growth. Words falling in and out of favour. If we start viewing language as only the bare minimum necessary we lose sight of nuance, subtlety, and complexity, and potentially may start to reduce our abilities to think creatively as we lack the words to properly articulate complex thought.
But hopefully that is a far off dystopia.
How do you read my mind and discuss the very topic I didn't know I wanted to talk about until now? Great impromptu video sir!
The surveillance van I have parked outside your house and monitoring your dreams is finally paying off.
@@ACriticalDragon ha, I was hoping that was an ice cream truck
They also serve ice-cream. It is a profitable cover.
I wonder how much of Shakespeare’s larger vocabulary is due to a compression of language over time. An easy example is you/your. Shakespearean English had those, as well as thee, thy, thou, thine which immediately triples the count.
This is not to disparage the bard, I’m an outspoken Shakespeare lover in my life, but I wonder if we’re comparing apples and oranges when we compare his works to modern literature.
I was using it as an easy comparator to put modern vocabularies in context. Shakespeare was understood by the common person, not just the well educated, and he invented words including nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives. So even shortening his count by 500 to take account of potential grammatical varieties, he is still in excess of modern graduate level vocabularies. Plus, his works were understood by the common popular audience. Additionally he wasn't ridiculed for stretching the language, for broadening the vocabulary beyond common usage, he was celebrated for it. The estimates for his personal vocabulary extend beyond what he used in plays and poetry. He is credited with coining at least a few thousand words, some that we still use today.
Fast forward to today and we have accusations that anything that goes beyond common usage is extravagant, pretentious, and showing off. So no, I don't think it is comparing apples to oranges. I think it is pointing out that we, with our vaunted modern education, unparalleled access to a multitude of texts unheard in all but the richest libraries. used to have multiple varieties of apples and now we have six commercial varieties and complain if people dare to use any of the others.
English as a language extends to around the 500,000 word mark at generous estimates. Given the various dialects and regional varieties, it is an enormously rich and complex corpus.
@@ACriticalDragon apologies, I think I might have missed your point. I’m used to seeing the 40,000 number used to disparage modern people as a whole, rather than audiences. Because of what I pointed out above I think I’ve developed a trigger response to seeing it used 😅😅
I completely agree with the point regarding the backlash against authors using wider ranging vocabularies. Then again, I’m an Erikson reader, so that maybe isn’t a surprise.
No apology necessary. It is a good point about how language shifts and changes over time.
The modern world is much too eager to coddle people and expect too little of them, and the trend of dumbing down young adult or general 'genre' fiction is a good example- it assumes that young or perhaps less educated people are incapable of learning and should not be presented with anything they may be unfamiliar with. As someone who's not a native English speaker, I've never seen elaborate writing as 'pretentious'. Rather, I see unfamiliar words and sentence structures as a challenge and a way to learn more about a language, given that all the information is readily accessible nowadays thanks to the internet.
I love how Tolkien, for example, plays with the diction levels of his characters and how they can vary depending on the situation, and even the style of the narration always adjusts to the tone of a given scene and chapter. And it's not just archaic words but also delightfully old-fashioned ways of constructing sentences ("But no living man am I!"). If you had everyone speaking modern English, or modern English embellished with one or two archaisms here and there, a lot of that linguistic dimension to the story and characterization would be lost. Yet a lot of modern fantasy is like that, and it just feels flat and flavorless as a result.
I'd say that writing is only pretentious when the author is trying to use archaic or formal language but are clearly doing it with an incomplete command of the archaic style they're trying to emulate, such as the often incorrect usage of "thou/thee", "whomst", and so on. Not counting when this is done to achieve an effect (e.g. to make a character seem pretentious), of course.
I think that the reduction of the number of big publishers has impacted this as well because it forces narratives to be more accessible in order to be more commercially viable.
But those are great points. Thank you.
According to OED, there are about 171,000 words currently in use. And another 47,000 which have fallen out of use. So Shakespeare’s 40K covers only about 1/4 to 1/5th of what’s in the dictionary (which of course is behind the times, and does not include many neologisms).
Vocabulary is one aspect, but it can work the other way. Hemingway’s pared down style and vocabulary can also feel pretentious, in the sense that it feels unnatural with all those conjunctions. It comes across as a kind of mask. Many people would say the same about James Ellroy, with his rapid fire, clipped style, eschewing connective words, etc…. The vocabulary is pretty simple, but the writing is highly stylized, and thus can be seen as pretentious. For me, Cormac McCarthy’s refusal to follow punctuation conventions strikes me as extremely pretentious and off putting. And look at the following, somewhat famous example. The author has pretty much decided that he has outgrown the need for writing sentences. An entire paragraph with perhaps only one single subject/verb/object construction. The vocabulary is middling, but the effect, especially for its time, was quite pretentious:
LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln�s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes � gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another�s umbrellas in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
Deviation from standard convention for artistic effect seems to be the thing that people think of as 'pretentious', and yet we all know that is often at the heart of some of the most important works.
From how many use the term the deciding factor appears to be whether the person enjoyed the choice.
I completely agree that alterations to standard grammar can often be perceived as pretentious, but McCarthy and Dickens both had reasons for the choice that tie to theme, tone, atmosphere etc. So the decision about whether the choices are 'pretentious' seems to remain with the individual as a question of taste and preference.
Plus, if you look further down the paragraph about the OED number of words the number changes dramatically upwards depending on how we define 'word'.
What are some of your favorite words that have grown out of popular use?
I was recently reminded of one of my favorite words for twilight, gloaming.
I do have to ask, what do you think the word count is for any given Malazan book ?
The Malazan Book of the Fallen is roughly 3.5 million words, so average word count would be 350,000.
Everyone whose writing is above the diction level of a 5th grader is pretentious, at least thats what I remember from one of your other videos :P How wonderful that everything is just that simple
A lot of newspapers and news programmes aim at a reading level of between 8-10 years old. It is no surprise, although somewhat depressing, that fiction is following this trend.
@ACriticalDragon English isn't my first language and even though my active vocabulary is rather small by my own estimate, my passiv vocabulary is a lot better and even as a none native speaker I have read books obviously aimed at an adult audience (due to topic and violence) which made me think "wait, why does this feel so simplistic"... pretty sad
double plus good video!
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. 😂😂
I have read a lot of US Civil War history and agreed the language seems almost aristocratic in its formalities and use of Big Words. Or the dialogue Deadwood with its poetic profanities.
I made the comment elsewhere that I believe this is an issue with teaching the 'classics' where the English used is almost a foreign languange in its terms and structure.
Dear Eric,
It has been months since we last corresponded. Morale here on the front lines has descended to its very nadir.
Doctor Fantasy has maliciously slandered mine good name at every turn. Can none see his mellifluousness disguises a blaggard's soul? What foulness he disseminates with every breath, yet all take it as mana from the heavens. Even the threat of the naughtiest of steps has lost its sting against such callous depravity.
However, I willst persevere in mine endeavours, and confront his devious machinations until my very last breath.
Stay steadfast in the battle, Eric. There is no telling whensoever the front may shift toward your domicile.
With regards,
A Critical Dragon, esquire.
@@ACriticalDragon You had way too much fun writing that. Warms the cockles of my heart.
I honestly don't understand why obscure or specific words are more taboo now that 100 years ago. You're literally one-click away from the definition. You don't need to crack open one of grandpa's five limited dictionaries anymore. The attention economy is ever more exacting.
Agreed. And for Kindel users, the answer is one long press away
But we have to balance the immersion of reading against the education of the reader. I think we can all understand the frustration of having to stop reading to look something up. Then again, literacy is a process and journey with no end point.
I think that we sometimes overestimate our command of a language and it can be a rude awakening to find out we don't know as much as we thought we did. So we either accept that lesson and learn from it, or we take the position that the author used too complicated language.
But that line will be different for every reader, and we all have different areas of knowledge. And this is just one aspect that impacts our reading experience.
Guess Who? 😂
Through daily proximity to the great slabs of stone, the faces of the Grey Scrubbers had become like slabs themselves. There was no expression whatever upon the eighteen faces, unless the lack of expression is in itself an expression. They were simply slabs that the Grey Scrubbers spoke from occasionally, stared from incessantly, heard with, hardly ever. They were traditionally deaf. The eyes were there, small and flat as coins, and the colour of the walls themselves, as though during the long hours of professional staring the grey stone had at last reflected itself indelibly once and for all. Yes, the eyes were there, thirty-six of them and the eighteen noses were there, and the lines of the mouths that resembled the harsh cracks that divided the stone slabs, they were there too. Although nothing physical was missing from any one of their eighteen faces yet it would be impossible to perceive the faintest sign of animation and, even if a basinful of their features had been shaken together and if each feature had been picked out at random and stuck upon some dummy-head of wax at any capricious spot or angle, it would have made no difference, for even the most fantastic, the most ingenious of arrangements could not have tempted into life a design whose component parts were dead. In all, counting the ears, which on occasion may be monstrously expressive, the one hundred and eight features were unable, at the best of times, to muster between them, individually or taken _en masse_, the faintest shadow of anything that might hint at the workings of what lay beneath.
Is that from Gormenghast?
I have picked that up, skimmed a few pages and put it down about 5 times now. Still want to read it though, just need to be in the right mood.
@@ACriticalDragonCorrect 😂 Came to mind when you said pretentious 😂
What does the library behind you have to say, considering the topic of this video? I am not trying to upset you, just trying to be funny.
It says, "AP recently had to move continent and the image of empty bookcases was depressing. So as he had to use a virtual background and talks about books all the time, he chose a picture of a library. "
shakespeare's dum
Thank you. Your first version was far too pretentious ;D
@@kingplunger1 lol. You saw that.
@@DanExploresBooksI did indeed ^^
What did I miss?
@@ACriticalDragonSadly I can't repeat it, but maybe the original author will be back.
Your backdrop could be said to be pretentious.