Cormac McCarthy's vocabulary

[MikeWaters]

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.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

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.

Yes, there is a lot of this. "He sat his horse" instead of "he sat on his horse" is another such example. This article by James Wood (not the same one I linked the other day) talks about this in depth.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/200...0725crbo_books

[Levin]

Reminds me that the Eskimos have any number of different words for snow. We see frozen white stuff. The Eskimos see a whole palette.