In the desert interior of the single Hermetian continent of Greatland, yerb grows on yardangs. (XV, p. 207) (That Wikipedia article on yerb is in some strange variant of English.) I no longer routinely google unfamiliar terminology in Poul Anderson's texts because I figure everyone can google and terms that are unfamiliar to me will be familiar to others. However, I thought that "yardangs" immediately followed by "yerb" warranted some attention.
The trader team clandestinely approaches Falkayn's occupied home planet, Hermes. I know what is going to happen so I am in no hurry and can pause on unusual items like "yardangs," which I do not remember having read before although I must have done, in this novel. If we notice such a word only once in our lives, then there is no way to know in advance what it means and we did not always have a dictionary to hand in pre-internet days.
Where did Poul Anderson get his extensive vocabulary from?
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I suggest Poul Anderson acquired his richly extensive vocabulary in two ways: from extensive reading and using his imagination to coin plausible off Earth words. I myself picked up "twaddle" from him using that word in OPERATION CHAOS. Also, I was flattered when Anderson started using "usurper" in works written after 1978. I had used that word several times in my first letters to him in 1978.
Once in a rare while I think Anderson erred a bit in his use of words. The most obvious, to me, being his baffling use of "glade."
Sean
Poul not only read very widely, he had considerable knowledge of linguistics and of how linguistic evolution works, which enabled him to extrapolate plausibly. Also, he was multilingual, in a set of related languages: English, Danish, Icelandic (which is essentially the parent-language of the modern Scandinavian tongues) and others. This gave him a sense for how 'coinages' of new words arise in settings where speakers are encountering new physical and social phenomena.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, with the exception of Anderson's use of "glade." Ever since I found out that word means ONLY an open area within a wooded region, I've found PA's use of that word to be, at best, baffling. NO dictionary in which I looked up "glade" defines it the way Anderson used it.
Sean
Hi all,
I love this short line in THERE WILL BE TIME: "Es tu peregrinator temporis?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I think I remember that line! One time traveler speaking to another in Jerusalem, at the time of Christ's Crucifixion. I think it means, roughly, "Are you a time traveler?"
Sean
To all who might be interested: I made another attempt at trying to make sense of Anderson's use of "glade." And I finally checked, online, what the Oxford Dictionary said. The OD defined "glade" as meaning an open space in a wooded region. However, this is how the Dictionary defined the origin of that word: "Late Middle English: of unknown origin; perhaps related to glad or gleam, with reference to the comparative brightness of a clearing (obsolete senses of glade include 'a gleam of light' and 'a bright space between clouds').
I am glad there was SOME justification for Anderson's use of "glade," even if his use of the word did not really fit into the obsolete senses mentioned above. All the same his use of "glade" seems needlessly obscure to me, when I had to consult several dictionaries before I finally used the Oxford. The most common meaning of "glade" still means an open space within a wooded area.
Sean
Sean,
On "Es tu peregrinator temporis?," yes to both.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
On that bit of Latin: I thought so!
And as for Anderson's use of "glade," it seems he had in mind obsolete senses of that word to justify what still seems an idiosyncratic use of the word.
Sean
Sean,
But you did track down that obsolete meaning: "a gleam of light."
Paul.
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