Funny, I didn't notice any problem with Eco, not with Rose or Foucult's Pendulum. I think I rather like being introduced to new milieus, and have grown to prefer them to be based in reality, rather than imagination, though I can remember in my youth haunting a SciFi shop hungering for new worlds. (Then I started to find out that what I had thought were strange and inventive landscapes were somewhere in California. It's like finding out the author has plagiarised someone.)

Since you own to not having read Donaldson, I'll own to having stopped after three. I didn't really like the characters. There was a gap in publication, and by the time the new ones came out I just couldn't be bothered. I haven't ever met anyone who is a fan, so I don't know about the superiority aspect. I have met that type though. Usually over aware of their own high IQ.

I used British spelling of the study of the causes of, of course. The Greek in that case is a useful word in its place, but in a lot of others being able to string together a phrase which makes meaning clear is one of the things that makes English, wherever it is used, or however it is spelled, such a useful and flexible language. Of course, if one is bound by a word limit, it is less so.

I think in writing it would help to fit the vocabulary to the observer in the book, as well as to the reader. Alan Garner in "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen", and George MacDonald in the Curdie books both describe goblin creatures without using words which hide their meaning, and are very effective. The characters who meet the creatures would not have eaten any dictionaries.

11.15 pm, and I think I need some old fashioned lettuce.

Penny