His Use of Words

[Moonbat]

I am currently reading A Feast for Crows, it isn't the best book in the series but I'm plodding along with it, some interesting characters, I never realised how evil Cersei was.


But I have noticed, and not for the first time, that GRRM sometimes finds a new word and then uses it lots. For example in the chapter I am now reading he used the word leal. Now I didn't know what it meant so, having a kindle, I looked it up and thought, oh ok. But then he has used it another 3 or 4 times in the same chapter, and I'm sure it is the first chapter I have seen it in.
I think he did something like this earlier in this book, or maybe book 3. It seems to me that he has found a word that he likes, in this case an archaic Scottish one meaning Loyalty or fealty to a king or ruler (i think) and used it in the appropriate place, but then he has liked it so much he has over-used it in the pages directly following its first use.

I might be wrong, he could have used it books ago and I forgot, but I felt it was an odd thing to happen, has anyone else noticed this?

 

[Brian G Turner]

It may be the case that he is using something of a character POV, and the word helps define that character POV.

I've seen it suggested elsewhere that GRRM uses this device to some limited extent, and Theon/Reek chapters especially use it.

However, I've not noticed it personally, but I tend not to be so observant unless it's full in your face, as with Abercrombie's use of POV.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Oh, that was me said that. I think it is slightly different, in the sense he has some generic terms set my teeth on edge they were used so much like bend the knee....grrrr.... The theon/ reek thing was a sense of shared idiom that i felt was there, but i could have been talking rubbish.

 

[juleska]

I've noticed it, too, on my re-read. The one that killed me in AFFC was "nuncle". Something about that word is incredibly irritating, and every time I read it I kinda wanted to punch something.

 

[Boaz]

It may be the case that he is using something of a character POV, and the word helps define that character POV.

That's exactly what GRRM does to enhance the feel of discovering a particular part of the story through a certain character's point of view. It helps to give regional, gender, and age biases because they obfuscate certain facets of the overall story... He likes his red herrings. But on the other hand, I agree that ADWD and AFFC were not as dynamic in substance. None of the first four books took me more than thirty hours from purchase to finish, but ADWD took about a week.

 

[juleska]

The thing is it's not just from one character's POV. Jaime and Asha (and others I can't recall right now) both use nuncle in AFFC, but Jaime never referred to Kevan as nuncle before that volume. The phrase "words are wind" is uttered by various characters from The Wall to Mereen.

 

[viZion]

I've noticed it, too, on my re-read. The one that killed me in AFFC was "nuncle". Something about that word is incredibly irritating, and every time I read it I kinda wanted to punch something.

I agree and had the exact same feeling.