Hardscoured

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Marius Hancu - 29 Apr 2008 20:56 GMT

Hello:

Would you take "hardscoured" to me "polished" or, on the contrary,
"rough," in this context. I'd go for the latter, but the etymology begs
the contrary.

Don't find it in any dictionaries. No big surprise by now:-)

-------
[Hae-Joo, an educated member of the Union/Resistance, pretends for
"camo"/camouflage reasons to be Nun-Hel Han, a sailor.]

Hae-Joo's accent was now hardscoured; in fact, I glanced to check it was
still him at my side.

...

Nun-Hel Han the sailor said [to the motel owner] I would only be with
him a nite or two.

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, p. 354
-------

Thanks.
Marius Hancu

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tinwhistler - 30 Apr 2008 01:12 GMT

[snip]

> [Hae-Joo, an educated member of the Union/Resistance, pretends for
> "camo"/camouflage reasons to be Nun-Hel Han, a sailor.]
>
> Hae-Joo's accent was now hardscoured; in fact, I glanced to check it was
> still him at my side.

[snip]

I'm thinking the new accent had become, through practice, quite
passable. FWIW, a citation from OED2 for "hard scrubbed:"

1697 W. Dampier Voy. I. 222 The *Guava Fruit grows on a hard scrubbed
Shrub.
--
Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~ San Diego

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Marius Hancu - 30 Apr 2008 12:10 GMT

> I'm thinking the new accent had become, through practice, quite
> passable. FWIW, a citation from OED2 for "hard scrubbed:"
>
> 1697 W. Dampier Voy. I. 222 The *Guava Fruit grows on a hard scrubbed
> Shrub.

Thanks. I doesn't quite ring well in the context, though.

Marius Hancu

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / April 2008

Hardscoured