From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   Dorothy J Heydt wrote:   
   > In article ,   
   > William Vetter   wrote:   
   >> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:   
   >>>>   
   >>> 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.   
   >   
   > Blitzed, as in confused?  Or as in not possessed of a very large   
   > vocabulary?  I get the impression that woman was like the little   
   > boy in _Heidi,_ whom his grandmother would ask to read to her   
   > from her hymnbook, but he would leave out any word he didn't   
   > understand, so that there were hardly any nouns left in what he   
   > read.   
      
   I will tell you a parable...   
      
   Once upon a time I was involved with a university professor from   
   Britain.  All of his graduate students were Chinese.  He would talk to   
   them, give them orders in very rapid and elaborate speech, and they   
   would stand in a circle around him, smile and nod their heads.   
      
   After he left the room, they would all turn to me and ask, "What did he   
   say?  We only understand one word in ten when he talks."   
      
   I would tell them in a sort of Pidgin, "The crystal, he diffract weak,"   
   and so on.   
      
   They would gaze at me in wonder and say, "You aren't like other   
   Americans!  We can understand you!"   
      
   The moral is human beings can tolerate some new words, but if they are   
   far too many, they lose hope.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)