Monday, July 18, 2011

Verbosity

In a review written for the American magazine, The Academy, dated 1 October 1881 of E W White's Cameos from the Silver-land; or the Experiences of a Young Naturalist in the Argentine Republic, a classic work of economic geography and natural history, the reviewer complained, "The author is terribly fond of long words. To him plants become bosquetish, plains are sabulous, cattle are meat-bearing beeves, dead men are cadavers, parrots are psittacs. The Republic is 'a vast cerealic and frugiferous as well as a lanigerous and pelliferous region'."

Noted by Michael Quinion in his latest World Wide Words newsletter.

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