Exotic words

I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction and what you get a lot in those is new words. ( Read more... )

So: poetry.
Is all about the careful selection of words. ( Read more... )

Some of the meanings shift over time. Reading Byron I have to be a bit careful ( Read more... )

The Corsair's first canto sticks basically with familiar words and classical references, Ariadne and suchlike being the bits I had to look up. I can mostly remember them though, I've mostly heard of them.
For Eastern words? Moslem, Sirocco (arabic by way of italian), that's about it until right at the end of the canto, where there's Pacha and Moslem again.
Canto 2 has a bazillion of them.
( Read more... )

But the way they're used, it's like:

Glared on the Moslems' eyes some Afrit Sprite,
Whose demon death-blow left no hope for fight.

It's not Afrit, leaving you to figure it out, it's Afrit Sprite demon. Three words from the same set just in case we were confused. And what does 'afrit' uniquely bring to them? Well, not a lot. ( Read more... )

Back to fantasy and science fiction:

I think basically it helps to be aware of the patterns in 'exotic' word use in mainstream lit because a lot of it left traps lying around. ( Read more... )