First off, the linked article uses the term “archaic” first to describe the text, which is where I’m taking it from. Regardless, I don’t think “archaic” is an unfitting term here — Bleak House was written 171 years ago, with a setting even further back than that. It has a particular written style that is distinctly different from typical, modern English, and it uses now uncommon terms that most modern English speakers (outside of maybe those from the UK?) won’t recognize. Mind you, I’m not saying it violates grammatical rules or uses something like Middle English, but at least some of what makes it a challenging read is how old it is.
For example, did you understand what “Michaelmas Term” was without looking it up or having it defined in the article?
I’m sorry, my tone was off somewhere. I was not criticizing you at all, but rather the source material. It just surprised me that they characterized it that way.
No worries, I feel like it’s hard to convey tone on the internet. I often personally find it challenging not to come off as confrontational, no matter what my actual intent is.
Reflecting on it a little further, I also think my inconsistent use of “modern” in the prior posts as sometimes a shorthand for both “contemporary” and also “plainly understood” wasn’t doing me any favors in conveying my argument.
Right, understood. I’m saying that’s it’s Modern English as opposed to, say, Middle English. I can (mostly) read Chaucer, for example, but I still have to look stuff up. To me, that’s archaic. I cannot read Old English at all. And difficult, to me, would be, say, James Joyce (over my head, honestly), or Thomas Pynchon (readable, but requires a lot of thought), or say Foucault’s Pendulum (Eco is so much more erudite than I am).
I really can’t understand this sentiment. That is modern English
First off, the linked article uses the term “archaic” first to describe the text, which is where I’m taking it from. Regardless, I don’t think “archaic” is an unfitting term here — Bleak House was written 171 years ago, with a setting even further back than that. It has a particular written style that is distinctly different from typical, modern English, and it uses now uncommon terms that most modern English speakers (outside of maybe those from the UK?) won’t recognize. Mind you, I’m not saying it violates grammatical rules or uses something like Middle English, but at least some of what makes it a challenging read is how old it is.
For example, did you understand what “Michaelmas Term” was without looking it up or having it defined in the article?
I’m sorry, my tone was off somewhere. I was not criticizing you at all, but rather the source material. It just surprised me that they characterized it that way.
I do apologize for the confusion.
No worries, I feel like it’s hard to convey tone on the internet. I often personally find it challenging not to come off as confrontational, no matter what my actual intent is.
Reflecting on it a little further, I also think my inconsistent use of “modern” in the prior posts as sometimes a shorthand for both “contemporary” and also “plainly understood” wasn’t doing me any favors in conveying my argument.
Right, understood. I’m saying that’s it’s Modern English as opposed to, say, Middle English. I can (mostly) read Chaucer, for example, but I still have to look stuff up. To me, that’s archaic. I cannot read Old English at all. And difficult, to me, would be, say, James Joyce (over my head, honestly), or Thomas Pynchon (readable, but requires a lot of thought), or say Foucault’s Pendulum (Eco is so much more erudite than I am).
Edit: punctuation, ironically