13 Comments
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Keith Long's avatar

Love obscure words — I have a list of ones I’ve encountered, and now these verbs are in there. Also this form of simile is great, cutting back on the ‘like’ form and tightening up the prose👌

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Thaddeus Thomas's avatar

The moment I saw what McCarthy had done, I was in love.

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Keith Long's avatar

I do thoroughly enjoy a McCarthy book. I’ve read a lot of his books, and Blood Meridian is possibly my favorite. Though I liked No Country, The Road, and Suttree

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Thaddeus Thomas's avatar

I was obsessed with No Country for a long while, and Suttree is a favorite.

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Leeron Heywood's avatar

Ooh! This is yet another “I have done this, but unconsciously and erratically, and now I have understanding of the concept I am excited to revisit it properly”.

Particularly because I love metaphorical imagery so being able to dodge adding another “like” is invaluable. 😄

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Thaddeus Thomas's avatar

I love seeing people excited about language

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Brenda's avatar

What fun! Thanks for this discussion. Isn’t language an amazing thing?

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Thaddeus Thomas's avatar

I'm glad you liked it!

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E.M.R's avatar

Well put and the examples are so effective. Definitely keeping some of these words for later. Toying with metaphors is a passion.

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Thaddeus Thomas's avatar

They're really fun. Antithetical to this, learning to expand them like McCarthy is a blast. The rule has always been to keep it short and move on, but an extended metaphor can be used to great effect.

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E.M.R's avatar

Always seems to be a middle ground to these things, as well as the use of both when they are needed to maximize your idea or message. It’s important to know when to use it and not just how. Your articles are eye opening!

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Thaddeus Thomas's avatar

Well put.

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Nick Winney's avatar

some great words in themselves to enrich the vocabulary, let alone the thoughts on how to use them to conjur up imagery that enhances the scene.

A verb I love but which i think may only be colloquial is "To Furtle" which is to quickly and furtively rummage through things to see what you can find... there is a connotation that you are doing it opportunistically and shouldn't really be doing it.

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