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Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.169.217.52
| Posted on Monday, March 15, 2010 - 04:29 pm: | |
Weird Words - A Lovecraftian Lexicon (Hippocampus Press 2009) by Dan Clore I have just purchased this book. It's a vast tomely lexicon of weird words. Very aesthetic. I may pass further comment in due course after exploring it. It seems already to fill a gap in the realm of dictionaries for the benefit of brainwrights and weirdmongers alike. Here below is a specimen page (no axe to grind with Shakespeare, Jack Vance, James Joyce, Weirdmonger et al!):-
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Craig (Craig) Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.229.157
| Posted on Monday, March 15, 2010 - 07:50 pm: | |
I'm amazed someone was able to pick a single sought-for word from FINNEGANS WAKE! (It must be in a computer by now, so you just do simple data searches... in fact, all these, must be... google books, does that allow for that?...) |
Colin Leslie (Blackabyss)
Username: Blackabyss
Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 86.132.5.239
| Posted on Monday, March 15, 2010 - 07:57 pm: | |
Famous company you keep Des but you fit in nicely |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.169.217.52
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 09:28 am: | |
Just picking some words from this huge Lexicon at random: corpse-light, Charonian, fescenninely, blasphemous, immeasurable, nyctaloptic, recondite, Phlegethontic... |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.169.217.52
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 09:38 am: | |
.............'fescenninely' (as defined in the book) for example has this quote:- "Laying an affectionate hand on Valzain's shoulder, he hoisted aloft with the other that fescenninely graven quart goblet from which he was wont to drink only wine, eschewing the drugged and violent liquors often prefered by the sybarites of Umbri." Clark Ashton Smith, 'Morthylla' (1952) |
Joel (Joel) Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:10 pm: | |
Smith was ripe for happy slapping at times, don't you think? You can just see him rubbing his hands and muttering: "FIVE syllables!" |
Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:17 pm: | |
What a horribly convoluted sentence. It demonstrates very well my problem with Smith. |
Tony (Tony) Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.163.176.9
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:26 pm: | |
He patted his best mate on the shoulder and raised his wine glass. He didn't like the cheap plonk the chavs drank. Yes, a line made much richer by Fancy Words. Poor fella... |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.169.217.52
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:39 pm: | |
This rich brew that is Clark Ashton Smith... Actually, the more I look into this book, the more I think it is indispensable for any horror writer (Clark Ashtom Smith style or Cormac McCarthy!) It's brimful with a cornucopia of words and quotes from literature and fiction (weird or otherwise). I am puzzled to report that I am one of the very few late twentieth century writers to have a quote in there (or so it seems so far). |
Joel (Joel) Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 01:20 pm: | |
Oh, if only Farnsworth Wright had docked $10 from Smith's fee for every use of the word 'haply'... |
Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.229.205
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 01:50 pm: | |
Apparently Smith read a hefty dictionary from cover to cover solely to broaden his vocabulary. I don't know which dictionary it might have been, but I'm inclined to believe this. |
Joel (Joel) Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 02:59 pm: | |
I'm tempted to say he used it as a guide to plotting as well. But that would be mean. |
Huw (Huw) Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.46.49
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 03:20 pm: | |
I believe it was the Oxford Unabridged, Hubert! |
Craig (Craig) Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.131
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 04:38 pm: | |
Hey, SOMEONE had to write stories that way! And Hemingway sure wasn't his weight doing it. |
Craig (Craig) Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.131
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 04:39 pm: | |
"pulling his weight" - though, hmm... is there some kind of hidden meaning in that flub there?... |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.169.217.52
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 05:10 pm: | |
By means of a vexed texture of text or a woven firewall of words, I feel that one can sometimes wring a greater degree of (often unexpected) meaning or plot-direction or characterisation-construction than in straightforward or transparent or linear prose. |
Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw
Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 05:18 pm: | |
I love that Robert E. Howard passage... it sums up his weird and earthy approach at one and the same time. |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.169.217.52
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 07:46 pm: | |
This is the full text of the CAS story that contained the word 'fescenninely': http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/142/morthylla Does it work in context? |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.169.217.52
| Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 08:03 pm: | |
I like this bit in it: "And tedium lurks at the middle of all kisses" |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.169.217.52
| Posted on Thursday, March 18, 2010 - 12:28 pm: | |
This is a quote from Clark Ashton Smith that Dan Clore (the author of the Lexicon) has highlighted elsewhere: Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind. -- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms" |
Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.229.205
| Posted on Thursday, March 18, 2010 - 12:35 pm: | |
I wonder whether the man talked like that as well. I don't recall any anecdotes in the biographical material I've seen. |