Certain minor peculiarities of language are used unconsciously by poets. If such peculiarities appear in the works o...
sairaj87August 28, 2014
Use Of Language
I found that the use of language in this passage and in the answer choice was kind of difficult. Even after trying to under the passage I was unable to figure out why the right answer is the right answer. Can you explain this to me and how would I go about tackling this answer so I can solve it quickly !?? Thank you
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One can use peculiarity of language in a poem to identify the authorship of a poem whose authorship was previously unknown by comparing the poem to a work of a particular known poet--since these personal idiosyncratic uses of peculiarities of language act as "fingerprints" for different poets.
However, if you take a poem whose authorship was previously unknown and compare its peculiarities of language to a poem of known authorship with similar peculiarities of language, one of two possibilities could exist: (1) the unknown poem is from the same poet because he is the only one who uses that peculiarity of language and (2) the unknown poet is a different poet and the peculiarity of language was merely language common in usage during that time.
Answer choice (C) points to this exact hole in the authorship test: "A peculiarity of language in a poem of unknown authorship could be evidence either that the poem was written by the one author known to use that peculiarity or that the peculiarity was not unique to that author."
Hope that was helpful! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
Luisvirgen37October 23, 2015
This a general question so the more weaken problems I do the more I see that the answer choices can be pre determined not like in the exact same words but the same line of thinking. Is it better to stop and think why that conclusion does not have to be true or just jump I'm into the anwser choices and reverse engineer. ( by elimanting because it does not weaken. )
NazOctober 27, 2015
This is a great point to bring up. It is always important to stop before you hit the answer choices and ask yourself how the argument proceeds and what the answer choice will probably sound like.
That way you won't be tricked by incorrect answer choices that have been included in order to sway you away from the correct answer.
Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
