Questions tagged [literary-english]

Questions related to English vocabulary, forms, phrases, and syntax that is now more commonly seen in written literature than in everyday speech.

99 questions
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Does "the cornet of horse" mean a knight/rider?

The original sentence: The first that stood up, to open the ball, were a cornet of horse, and that sweetest of olive-beauties, the soft and amorous…
May
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What does "He is so odd a mixture of" mean?

The following passage is from Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his…