Questions tagged [wording-choice]
Questions about a writer's precise selection of words as determined by a number of factors, including denotative and connotative meaning, specificity, level of diction, tone, and audience.
92
questions
3
votes
0
answers
358
views
Meaning of a "dry palate" and "frozen rain" in Achebe's "Things Fall Apart"
I am currently reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, consider the following passage.
The colonizers just came to the tribe of Mbanta and everyone seemed uninterested...
But there was a young ...
- 131
4
votes
0
answers
111
views
Why is Len Deighton so fond of American English?
I am British and have lived in Britain my entire life. I have never heard anyone refer to an estate car as a “station wagon”. I have never heard anyone refer to a criminal as a “hood”. I have never ...
1
vote
1
answer
179
views
Why does Tolkien keep referring to the Fellowship as "the Company"?
I noticed that the group making the journey from Rivendell is called "the Company" rather than "the Fellowship". The title of the book has "The Fellowship", yet he doesn'...
- 29
2
votes
1
answer
98
views
Meaning and significance of "cacheremo" in the Decameron?
In Day 3 Story 8 of the Decameron (Italian original), a prisoner in an abbey, who believes himself to be in purgatory, asks how far he is from his own country, and received the following reply:
“And ...
- 74.1k
8
votes
1
answer
2k
views
What can be gleaned from Lovecraft's usage of the words "obscene" and "blasphemous"?
Throughout his collective writings, the author H. P. Lovecraft makes frequent use of the words "obscene" and "blasphemous" in order to convey a sense that something is the object ...
- 427
2
votes
1
answer
95
views
What did Virginia Woolf mean by "walked on the past the flower–bed" in Kew Gardens?
From Virginia Woolf's short story "Kew Gardens":
They walked on the past the flower-bed, now walking four abreast, and soon diminished in size among the trees and looked half transparent as ...
- 21
8
votes
1
answer
810
views
Why is Philoktetes specifically hunting "doves"?
I am reading James Scully's translation of Philoktetes (also known as Philoctetes), in The Complete Plays of Sophocles, translated by Robert Bagg & James Scully. Twice it is mentioned that the ...
- 9,864
4
votes
2
answers
420
views
Why are "doves" used in this simile from "Aias"?
This is from James Scully's translation of Aias (also known as Ajax), in The Complete Plays of Sophocles, translated by Robert Bagg & James Scully.
Son of Telamon, rock of Salamis
towering up ...
- 9,864
4
votes
1
answer
247
views
Why "Cagots" for albinos in Morpurgo's Robin Hood story?
In Michael Morpurgo's short novel Robin of Sherwood (1998), republished in 2012 as Outlaw: the True Story of Robin Hood, the band of outlaws in Sherwood forest starts off as outcast misfits including ...
- 74.1k
5
votes
1
answer
160
views
What does it mean to "graze on the fizzy air"?
This is from James Scully's translation of Aias (also known as Ajax), in The Complete Plays of Sophocles, translated by Robert Bagg & James Scully.
Dear boy
may you be ...
- 9,864
2
votes
1
answer
132
views
What does "beak first" mean in "An Ode to America"?
From "An Ode to America" (The Atlantic's Jan/Feb 2022 issue):
“Pretty good nose you got there! You do much fighting with that nose?”
New Orleans, 1989. I’m standing on a balcony south of ...
- 9,864
7
votes
1
answer
290
views
Why is Helen's speech here in the Iliad described as being given "warmly"?
In Book VI of The Iliad, when Hector has come to try to get Paris to fight, Helen chips in with her point of view:
Hector answered nothing, but Helen said warmly:
"Brother dear, I am ashamed; I ...
- 26.1k
7
votes
1
answer
696
views
Why is snow compared to "ash" in the poem "Snowfall"?
"Snowfall", by Ravi Shankar, has this as its first verse:
Particulate as ash, new year's first snow falls
upon peaked roofs, car hoods, undulant hills,
in imitation of motion that moves the ...
- 9,864
1
vote
0
answers
967
views
In Halsey's "You Should Be Sad", why is the expression "alligator tears" instead of "crocodile tears"?
In Halsey's "You Should Be Sad", there's one part that goes like this:
I'm just glad I made it out without breakin' down
And then ran so fuckin' far
That you would never ever touch me again
...
- 26.1k
13
votes
3
answers
7k
views
Why is a "cucumber sandwich" specifically used as what English faith has "only just enough teeth to get through"?
In Chapter 34 of The Kingdoms, Kite goes on this musing about religion:
The golden dome of the cathedral at Cadiz showed, just. He had been trying not to stare at it as much as he'd been trying not ...
- 9,864