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bedpan
Apr 23, 2008

Doc Fission posted:

I do a lot of effort OPs and then run out of steam quickly. This is a low-effort thread for me to showcase how many words I don't know, in particular words that have to do with canyons or guns or scalping a guy. Each word will get its own post so you too can luxuriate in my ignorance. I will also not look these words up so feel free to mansplain them to me or provide a helpful visual aid.

OK, I'm opening the book now. See you soon :clint:

As I read through these I am remembering the parts of the book you are at. The variety of words and shades of expressions they give is really really used well in Blood Meridian. Even better when you can understand all the words!

Looking at some of these, I find myself pronouncing them one way only to remember how it was used in the book and change my sounds.

Khizan posted:

It's Gaelic, yes. Pronounced something like "shi LAY lee". As a note, a proper one is smoothed and shaped and polished and such, but they still definitely look like they came off of a tree. Here's a wikipedia picture of some in construction.


TBH I learned this word because it was the name of a Druid spell to summon a magical club in the computer game Baldur's Gate, and I pronounced it as something like "Shilly-AUGH" for an embarrassingly long time.

To add to this, I'd say the shillelagh has a history of usage as "a walking stick you beat people with," usually when someone in a book is beaten senseless by a man with a shillelagh. If you are using the word shillelagh, you are really wanting to emphasize the type weapon being used and probably tying into the rather large collection (if I remember) of other encounters in books where someone experiences the other usages of an irish walking stick.


I can't remember how this is used in the book but a fusilier is the name for a soldier who carries the fusil, a special lighter musket made for the select troops forming the artillery guards.



If I recall, quirt is a whip but explicitly a short whip. A few feet at the most.

Doc Fission posted:

caparisoned

Additional decorations in addition to whatever other dress. Ostentatious decorations. Depending on how the word is used, there can be great irony there.


An architectural technique for reinforcing. It can be very decorative. Can you think of an arch that wasn't smooth on the inside?

bedpan fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Apr 26, 2021

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