![]() ![]() Other common expressions we use today, such as to “clap eyes” on someone, “butter-fingers,” “slow-coach,” and even “fairy story” were all things Dickens said first.īut Dickens’ linguistic creativity is not just about how he used language in his prose, not just about how he depicted dialects or slang, and certainly not just about how many new expressions he coined. (If you believe this “ scientific evaluation,” he writes no better than the dark and stormy posturings of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, because statistics never lie.) If you’re not a huge fan, you might say that Charles Dickens gives you the creeps… and you would be right, because he was the first to coin the expression, in David Copperfield (1849): “She was constantly complaining of the cold, and of its occasioning a visitation in her back which she called ‘the creeps.'” The truth is, Dickens was something of a linguistic revolutionary in his day and his influence on the English language can still be seen today. Of course, some may consider the prose stylings of Charles Dickens a bit overwrought and irrelevant to contemporary life. Even the lowliest, most fleeting minor character in a Dickens novel, regardless of wealth or education, can have an individual personality and humanity… and it’s interesting how Dickens expertly wields language to do this, in even the smallest degree. Given his impoverished childhood, these were all things Dickens was keen to represent in his works. Though eye dialect has often been accused of being a kind of linguistic prejudice, by separating the characters who use substandard speech from the norm, judicious use of it can flesh out a diversity of characters from different social backgrounds, sometimes serving as a way to highlight poverty, class issues, or social injustice. ![]() ![]() He’s been described as a “ professor of slang,” in the way he depicts regional accents and idiolects, for one thing. Scholars and critics have noted that Dickens wrote with an ebullient linguistic flair and not just because he used quite a lot of words. Even the lowliest, most fleeting minor character in a Dickens novel, regardless of wealth or education, can have an individual personality and humanity. ![]()
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