Thursday, November 6, 2008

What does the word "clamoured" likely mean in the sentence "I reapproached the wall; I replied to the yells of him who clamoured" in "The Cask of...

Let's look at what the sentence means. It seems to be saying, "I replied to the yells of the guy who was yelling," or, "I replied to the yells of the guy who was making all that noise."


So, the context reveals that "clamor" (or "clamour," as Poe preferred to spell it) means "to make a loud noise, such as yelling."


In this case, the context lead us to the right conclusion. To clamor does mean to shout or to cry out in a loud way. It can be something that one person does alone, but often it's something that people do in a group, like this: "The kids clamored for ice cream." (It means they're making loud shouts as they ask for ice cream.)


"Clamor" comes from the same Latin root as some other words you already know: "exclaim" and "claim." That explains why "clamor" looks like "claim" and "exclaim," and it makes sense, too: "exclaim," "claim," and "clamor" all involve some sort of shouting out.


"Wait," you might say. "But the word 'clamor' doesn't add any meaning to the sentence from the story. Why didn't Poe just write, 'I replied to the yells'?"


Good question! Have you noticed how Poe loves fancy words, and how he loves to write long, flowing, formal, sometimes-repetitive sentences? It's just in his nature as a writer of horror stories to be a bit redundant at times. Here, Poe was repeating the idea that Fortunato was desperately crying out. Luckily for us, the way Poe uses words in such clear contexts does help us learn those words from his stories, which is great!

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