A Goodreads user asked:

Why is this book written in an old fashioned way?

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9 years ago
3 answers

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Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) For one thing, it came out in 1965, 51 years ago. For another, it deals with classical stuff--King Arthur, quests, etc. The author uses proper grammar because she was born in 1935, and because up until the last 10 years or so, in order to be considered for publication (back in the days when "book" meant "paper and a hard cover") you had to be able to write grammatically correct English.

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Hannah Ford Well, that depends on what precisely you mean by "old fashioned" I suppose. If you mean the general grammar and phrasing seem pretty different from the newest popular YA novel on the shelves--then you're not crazy! This book was originally published in 1965, 10-15 after such classics as The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings (which I mention because you can see similarities in the use of language). As an older book, it's of course going to sound different than what's on our shelves today because the popular, accepted style has changed over the years. :]

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