The Words of Winter
UPDATE, 1/5/12: House of Secrets announcement in EW!
I love Post-It flags. I admit it. Those skinny little Post-Its for annotating books? I'm terrible. If I see a display like this, my afternoon is over:
Over the years I've gotten some nifty designer ones --
[$10 at Bob's Your Uncle]
-- but I'll use whatever I can get my hands on. I'll even dog-ear pages if there aren't any Post-Its around. If I'm writing a review, I'll flag favorite passages and critical facts. (You'd be surprised how easy it is to finish a novel and be like, "How old was Scout again?") If I'm reading a book for pleasure, because I'm a dad, I limit myself to marking vocabulary words.
Steven King says in On Writing that with vocabulary, a writer should "use the first word that comes to mind, if it is appropriate and colorful" (emphasis his). It's good advice, but some people take it too far and decide they always have to use "said" instead of "scoffed" (or "smiled") and they can never use a Words-With-Friends word such as "ort."
If, like my father, you can pull off ort ("a morsel left at a meal" -- Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged), you belong to druidic order deserving of great veneration.
One person in this order is George R. R. Martin.
[Arya Stark from A Song of Ice and Fire;
art by Jordan Saia, who is doing the map for The Other Normals]
Martin is the author behind Game of Thrones, for anyone who doesn't know, and I would've had a lot less fun reading his latest A Dance with Dragons if my wife hadn't scored me an online membership to Webster's Unabridged. If you haven't read GRRM, you probably didn't know that English has 65,000 words for horse, including:
Or you may require polishing-up on your armor knowledge:
And then there are the words that only Martin (and Brian Jacques, R.I.P.) could pull off:
Recently GRRM posted an chapter of The Winds of Winter, the next book in his saga, and there was "garron", front and center. Recognizing it made me feel like part of the druidic order too.
But I might need an OED to read Winds of Winter -- Martin is starting to use words that break Webster's Unabridged. From Dance with Dragons, p. 549:
[T]he baggage train followed: mules, horses, oxen, a mile of wayns and carts laden with food...
Okay, I understand what it is in context, but does anyone know what a wayn is? I can't even find it on Google.
I love Post-It flags. I admit it. Those skinny little Post-Its for annotating books? I'm terrible. If I see a display like this, my afternoon is over:
Over the years I've gotten some nifty designer ones --
[$10 at Bob's Your Uncle]
-- but I'll use whatever I can get my hands on. I'll even dog-ear pages if there aren't any Post-Its around. If I'm writing a review, I'll flag favorite passages and critical facts. (You'd be surprised how easy it is to finish a novel and be like, "How old was Scout again?") If I'm reading a book for pleasure, because I'm a dad, I limit myself to marking vocabulary words.
Steven King says in On Writing that with vocabulary, a writer should "use the first word that comes to mind, if it is appropriate and colorful" (emphasis his). It's good advice, but some people take it too far and decide they always have to use "said" instead of "scoffed" (or "smiled") and they can never use a Words-With-Friends word such as "ort."
If, like my father, you can pull off ort ("a morsel left at a meal" -- Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged), you belong to druidic order deserving of great veneration.
One person in this order is George R. R. Martin.
[Arya Stark from A Song of Ice and Fire;
art by Jordan Saia, who is doing the map for The Other Normals]
Martin is the author behind Game of Thrones, for anyone who doesn't know, and I would've had a lot less fun reading his latest A Dance with Dragons if my wife hadn't scored me an online membership to Webster's Unabridged. If you haven't read GRRM, you probably didn't know that English has 65,000 words for horse, including:
- garron
Scot & Irish : an old broken-down worn-out horse - destrier
a large powerful horse used as a war-horse by a medieval knight - palfrey
especially : a light easy-gaited horse suitable for a lady
Or you may require polishing-up on your armor knowledge:
- greave
armor for the leg below the knee -- usually used in plural - gorget
a piece of armor defending the throat - vambrace
a piece of medieval armor designed to protect the forearm [smoking glance not included]
And then there are the words that only Martin (and Brian Jacques, R.I.P.) could pull off:
- mews
plural but usually singular in construction, chiefly Britain : stables - chivvy
to harass, annoy, or tease especially with persistence and by petty vexations and often for a specific purpose - croft
chiefly Britain : a small farmhold usually of 5 to 10 acres that is worked by a tenant - seneschal
a bailiff, steward, or majordomo of a great medieval lord or king representing the lord - torque
a usually metal collar or neck chain worn by the ancient Gauls, Germans, and Britons - limn
to outline in clear sharp detail : delineate - flense
to strip (as a whale or seal) of blubber or skin
Recently GRRM posted an chapter of The Winds of Winter, the next book in his saga, and there was "garron", front and center. Recognizing it made me feel like part of the druidic order too.
But I might need an OED to read Winds of Winter -- Martin is starting to use words that break Webster's Unabridged. From Dance with Dragons, p. 549:
[T]he baggage train followed: mules, horses, oxen, a mile of wayns and carts laden with food...
Okay, I understand what it is in context, but does anyone know what a wayn is? I can't even find it on Google.