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From: Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Walter Scott died (21/9/1832)
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2024 15:38:53 +0100
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 Ar an chéad lá is fiche de mí Méan Fómhair, scríobh Ross Clark: 

 > Most often mentioned here (at least by me) as a lexical resurrectionist. He
 > picked up words from old books and manuscripts to lend colour and
 > verisimilitude to his historical novels. Sometimes these words had not been
 > in common use for centuries, leading to telltale gaps in the record of
 > attestations in OED.
 > 
 > But there's more: "He illustrated Scots dialogue with unprecedented realism,
 > and gave many words their first recorded usage (over 400 in the Oxford
 > English Dictionary -- bedazzled, cold shoulder, deferential, hilarious,
 > password, uptake...)."
 > 
 > Interesting. I'm always skeptical about such numbers, and I notice Crystal
 > carefully does not claim that Scott made up these words and expressions. 
 > Still, I'm happy to learn that he was something of a linguistic innovator as
 > well as an antiquarian.

There’s an awful lot of interest today in his English contemporaries (Byron,
Ada Lovelace, Jane Austen) and none in him. I should put him on my to-read
list, I understand he’s fairly easy reading.

-- 
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)