Haggard gloom abroad in their pinched faces ...

[Johnyxxx]

Hi,

Can a good soul explain me the meaning of the sentence "... its haggard gloom abroad in their pinched faces!"

The paragraph it is included in reads as follows:

Brent looked after him wondering, but as he swept his gaze about him much of his wonder vanished. All around, the wan country seemed to rock giddily beneath those lowering skies, so heavy with the ram that never fell; all around, the sailing uplands seemed to heave and yearn under the sad tooting of the damp November wind. Oh, he could well imagine that the men of this weary, twilight region would be worn and old before their time, with its sinister stare in their eyes and its haggard gloom abroad in their pinched faces!

The source "The Bad Lands" by John Metcalfe

http://www.donaldcorrell.com/road/metcalfe/badlands.html

Thak you if you try to help.

 

[Tarheel]

Hi,

Can a good soul explain me the meaning of the sentence "... its haggard gloom abroad in their pinched faces!"

The paragraph it is included in reads as follows:

Brent looked after him wondering, but as he swept his gaze about him much of his wonder vanished. All around, the wan country seemed to rock giddily beneath those lowering skies, so heavy with the rain that never fell; all around, the sailing uplands seemed to heave and yearn under the sad tooting of the damp November wind. Oh, he could well imagine that the men of this weary, twilight region would be worn and old before their time, with its sinister stare in their eyes and its haggard gloom abroad in their pinched faces!

The source "The Bad Lands" by John Metcalfe

http://www.donaldcorrell.com/road/metcalfe/badlands.html

He is saying that the area is desolate and gloomy and that you can see it in the very faces of the inhabitants. (Apparently, they couldn't afford to pay a proofreader.)

 

[Johnyxxx]

Apparently, you try hard to be funny in every comment, but from my point of view, your attempts at being a comic figure are more than anything else embarrassing, awkward a trifle. Now I really would like to know what is wrong with the text that it needs a proofreader.

 

[Tarheel]

I was referring to the writing in The Bad Lands. There are mistakes there that a good proofreader would have fixed. (If anybody should be embarrassed it should be the writer.) One of those mistakes is in this thread. (They wouldn't be expecting a ram to fall (from where?), but they might be expecting rain to fall.)

Are you picking stuff like that to improve your English? (I don't see how it can help.)

:-|

 

[Johnyxxx]

You are right, there is a mistake with the word "rain" which is taken for "ram" but it is not fault of the author but the person that scanned the text is to be blamed.
After asking a question about a certain text I want to help with, I am constantly asked to mention the source, so I posted "the source" for "The Bad Lands", the web page containing the story; it was much more quicker and easier than to take the book by Metcalfe including "The Bad Lands" from my bookcase and scan the paragraph with the sentence I wanted to help with.
As far as your last sentence is concerned, I dare to say I can tell an error in an english text so if I had been more careful about it, definitely I would have discovered the awkward "ram" instead of "rain". Maybe next time.

 

[Tarheel]

Well, the "ram" thing wasn't the only error I found, but at least I didn't have to return to "The Bad Lands" to find the others. (Some of the weirdest stuff I've ever read.)

:shock: