Repetition and Deviation in the Garden of Good and Evil

... not to mention first aid for the advanced Lexicographer.

Oh my paws and whiskers... There are so many unanswerable questions on blogs these days that a "poison might get a cold" trying to answer them. Yet another imponderable from friends living "The Philadelphia Story" that I really would not, in normal circumstances take much trouble to think about. But with a gale blowing out of doors and feeling a desire to skive off real work, here goes.

How would I insert "foreign" words into a text in the English language so that the reader would get it. It would depend, first of all, who my typical reader is. Everybody writes for a market, whether they would like to admit it or not. So the words in question will depend on the effect the writer wishes to create.

In historical fiction quaint vocabulary works because the reader expects to be carried away to a country lost in the mists of time and learn about the customs of its inhabitants. No word (unless it has a markedly and recognisable lewd connotation and the market is children and the hyper-sensitive) can be discounted.

Words change meanings and connotations so quickly that many texts that were once reverenced as high art can seem ignoble and, frankly, daft. It works the other way too. "Ulysses" which one of the real-life models for the book pointed out was only fit for the VC (as the French prounounce it) is now hailed as a classic as democratision of literature bids farewell to the canons of the past.
That is as far as I can get today...
So now I'm off to do a "proper" days work and offer this plea that, if one should not put one's daughter on the stage, one should definately not allow one's son next or near writing implements.

I am reminded of what a courtly gentleman wrote centuries ago on the subject.

It is from the past and some may find it a blast...

'By God's Body I would rather that my son should hang than study literature. It behoves the sons of gentlemen to blow horn calls correctly, to hunt skillfully, to train a hawk well and carry it elegantly. But the study of literature should be left to clodhoppers.'