From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   Dorothy J Heydt wrote:   
   > 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."   
      
   That means the reader is blitzed.  Several obscure words in a novel may   
   excite the reader without blitzing her.   
      
   > 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."   
   >   
   Crimson is in the dictionary.  Aileuromorphic is not in the dictionary   
   (if you want to spell it like ailourophobia, it won't be in there   
   either).   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)