Dream or Memory

[loracs]

Is there such a thing as a novel written as a vocabulary builder for adults? I dreamed about such a thing last night, but this morning it felt like a real life memory. This book used "big" or arcane words. And in the back, much like "A Clockwork Orange", there is a dictionary, but it includes every word in the book. (Then you don't have to wonder was "is" is!)

I would imagine this to be a very cumbersome book, unless it was a novella and it used small type, esp. for the dictionary part. On the other hand, I wonder how many different words a novel normally would use and what could you bump it up to if the object was to increase vocabulary?

Comments

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

There are all kinds of vocabulary builders, and I think you invented a new one in your dream.

I tried to take some guesses, got stuck, and consulted wordweaverlynn, who happened to be handy. She pointed out the Flesch Reading Ease scale (easily findable on the Web and available with the Microsoft Word grammar checker). She and I guess that an average novel has at least 5,000 different words, and that a writer who had that as a goal could make it 15,000 without much trouble.

Now I want to run The Shadow of the Torturer through a Flesch calculator.

[loracs.livejournal.com]

I agree, almost all books are vocabulary builders. When I was in my early teens I would have a dictionary next to my bed, so I could look up words I didn't know. Now I'm more likely to open dictionary.com!

Thanks for pointing out the Fesch Reading Ease scale. I wasn't aware of it by name, but I've certainly purchased books for the nephews and niece with a grade/age level rating.

If an author wrote a book with the goal of using as many different words as possible, I wonder if this would get in the way of the story. I'm sure some writers may be better at this than others. How much time would they spend looking for different words?

"My characters tired and I've already used: beat, beat up, bored, broken-down, burned out, collapsing, consumed, distressed, dog-tired, done for, done in*, drained, drooping, droopy, drowsy, empty, enervated, exasperated, fagged, faint, fatigued, fed up, finished, flagging, haggard, irked, irritated, jaded, narcoleptic, overtaxed, overworked, petered out, played out, pooped, pooped out, prostrated, run-down, sick of, sleepy, spent, stale, tuckered out, wasted, weary, whacked, worn, and worn out. I need a bigger thesaurus!"

[someotherguy.livejournal.com]

I happen to have the eText of an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel handy, so I ran a word count on it. There are under 6000 different words, and that's without fully taking into account plurals and tenses. Also, it's one of Burroughs' alien adventure books so there are a lot of made-up words.