27 Mar 2012 - Meaning of Dickensian

I have been watching 'The Wire' and this season is following a storyline about the print media, and involves characters working for a newspaper who are writing articles about homelessness. A couple of times the Dickensian aspect has been mentioned, and today I decided to look up what that meant. At first due to their Baltimore accents, I didn't understand their pronunciation, and thought they were saying the dekensian aspect. However once I Googled the word dekensian, Google corrected me (because it is ever so helpful like that), and translated my misspelling to Dickensian, explaining that it means, 'Of or reminiscent of the novels of Charles Dickens, especially in suggesting the poor social conditions.'

This definition made sense with the context used in 'The Wire', as they were referring to homelessness and the Dickensian aspect of homelessness, which obviously was referring to the poor social conditions of living on the street. My discovery of the definition was also disappointing, because I didn't like that the word Dickensian wasn't more apparent. When you hear Shakespearian, there is no question that you are referring to the works of Shakespeare, however Dickensian, didn't have the same apparent meaning when I heard it used. This also got me to wondering if any authors of today would have words describing their works in a hundred or so years. I think Pattersonian, to describe the suspenseful aspects of James Patterson's books would be a great word in the future, and I am sure that there are many others out there if you think about it!