Mark Bowden is one of my favorite writers on military matters and international politics, Although I've only read one of his books so far (Black Hawk Down), I've been reading him for years in The Atlantic. In this blog post, he writes in praise of obscure words. Words that send him to the dictionary:
“Good prose is like a windowpane,” wrote George Orwell in his famous essay “Why I Write,” a rule that would seem to counsel against ever stopping a reader with an unfamiliar word. It’s good advice for beginners, but serious readers are also lovers of language. I find that the occasional obscure word, used correctly, spices prose.
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