Diction and Dictionary

 When reading certain authors, you prob'ly come across A LOT of words you don't know. I certainly do. Whenever practical, I look up words I don't know as soon as I read them and collect them in my notebook, and I underline them if looking them up isn't possible. I've also started writing down whose work I found them in. When I review these lists, I see the differences in the dictions of certain authors. When I find odd words in Thoreau, they look very different than the odd words in, say, The Scarlet Letter (by Nathaniel Hawthorne).

Lately I've been reading Maya Angelou's poetry, and even in the first few poems there are myriad new words: kithless* (having no friends or family), quiescent (inactive or dormant), lasciviously (lecherously), gelid (icy, very cold), phantasmatalities* (nightmarish creatures), and fulminant (sudden, bursting forth) among them.

Compare that to unfamiliar words in Tolkien's poem "Mythopoeia": Origo* (reference point, origin), homuncular (resembling a human), dint (impression or mark), involuted (complicated, difficult to understand, or obscure), and monition (warning of impending danger).

These are two subtly different sets of words. Tolkien's diction is earthier; Angelou's, dreamier - though they are not necessarily good dreams. The words themselves sound different. Angelou's hiss with S's and F's, while Tolkien's leave round sounds in your mouth and hard consonants on your teeth.

When you find words that you don't know (especially in classics), look them up and record who used them. The results may be fascinating.

*Please note that kithless, phantasmatalities, and Origo show up as spelling mistakes on my computer. This is a sure sign you've found a rare and archaic word.