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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"Mr. Creakle's part of the house was a good deal more comfortable than ours, and he had a snug bit of garden that looked pleasant after the dusty playground, which was such a desert in miniature, that I thought no one but a camel, or a dromedary, could have felt at home in it.
Sounds as though Dickens didn't know a dromedary is a camel.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, the other one is usually referred to as a Bactrian camel, while a dromedary is just a dromedary, and not a dromedary camel.
Bingley
Bingley
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Carpal Tunnel
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But the dictionarys all say a dromedary is a camel. Of course there are camels that are not dromedarys, in the sense that they have not been broken and trained to carry passengers or burdens. Plus the two humped camels vs. one humped. I just don't see any point in his having used two words when one would have sufficed.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I think Dickens is simply adding information to be specific, but unnecessarily so. Perhaps he was compulsive to show what he knew, whether it was the fact that he could tell the difference between camels of the desert or fine points on how the court system, such as it was, worked.
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Carpal Tunnel
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That,((WW comments) plus, he got paid by the word, so it was in his interest to make his books wordy, but he was skillful, and didn't make his work repetious. (which is why he is remembered, and other 'authors' of serial novels in other newspapers/magazines aren't.)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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apart from Wilkie Collins (The Woman in White, The Moonstone), of course.
Bingley
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