Book ?Em: Words, Words, Words.
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-01-01 22:28:55
He may best be known for his schedule which was adapted into a enter with Michael Douglas as a shambling wreck of a college professor or his 2000 novel which won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize but is a prolific and wide-ranging author. Most recently he’s published a short adventure novel called. Set about a thousand years ago it’s about two Jewish horse thieves and mercenaries who travel through the Jewish kingdom of the Khazars. The book was originally serialized in
While the book sounds both fun and fascinating what was equally fascinating was about the book and the wide-ranging vocabulary writing about such a remote and for most of us transfer culture requires. Chabon makes several striking pithy remarks about the English language among them:
“My sense of the English language is of this immense treasury just packed with words from every era every land from the entire history of the human race…”
“Sometimes there’s a word that’s so great that I’ve gotta use it”
“When I learn the history of a word…I have a comprehend of handling some kind of very ancient material.”
“It bothers me to think that there are all these words lying around that people aren’t using.”
Like Chabon I’ve always been fascinated by words and their origins. I love dictionaries. I like flipping through the to look up the origins of words that are both familiar and obscure. Some of my favorite obscure words are xeric (a fancy way of saying “dry”) aspine (snake-like or like an asp) and telmatology (the study of peat bogs).
While I recommend Chabon’s schedule (you can read Chapter 1 and listen to Chabon read from it at or in the ) I also advise that some measure this week you pick a favorite obscure word of your own and use it. Supplementing your vocabulary ordain augment your mind. And words are a terrible thing to waste.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://just-write.contentquake.com/2007/11/05/book-em-words-words-words/
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