Cormac McCarthy's vocabulary - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

MikeWaters · 03-09-2009, 07:53 PM

Vocabulary associated with land and rock, is not something we typically use, at least not to any detailed extent. A hill. A rise. A valley. A creek. A ravine. But the words that exist in English are much more extensive than this.

I was reading about hunting, and I noticed that they used some of these more obscure words that McCarthy uses. Why? These words are useful explanations of particular features that would require a certain response or consideration by a hunter.

Also, in "The Road" the use of binoculars is referred to as "glassing". I'd never heard that before. It's certainly more elegant than "looking through binoculars". Of course, in this same hunting article, they talked about glassing.

The specialized vocabulary of the particular is common to much of fiction and poetry. Giving detail to the largely unobserved world right under our feet.

03-09-2009, 07:53 PM	#1
MikeWaters Demiurge Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 36,365	Cormac McCarthy's vocabulary Vocabulary associated with land and rock, is not something we typically use, at least not to any detailed extent. A hill. A rise. A valley. A creek. A ravine. But the words that exist in English are much more extensive than this. I was reading about hunting, and I noticed that they used some of these more obscure words that McCarthy uses. Why? These words are useful explanations of particular features that would require a certain response or consideration by a hunter. Also, in "The Road" the use of binoculars is referred to as "glassing". I'd never heard that before. It's certainly more elegant than "looking through binoculars". Of course, in this same hunting article, they talked about glassing. The specialized vocabulary of the particular is common to much of fiction and poetry. Giving detail to the largely unobserved world right under our feet.