You could also read the Dupin stories, since Poe is often credited with inventing the modern detective story and many of its plots. "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a locked-room mystery, "The Purloined Letter" is about hiding a clue in plain sight, etc.

I think the urban legend is about the Inuit, but the original number (whatever it was) was a gross exaggeration. I still like the the truthiness of it -- that a people will have a lot of specific terms for something that looms importantly in their collective experience. I riffed on that for my Nana's eulogy -- pre-Google -- so I unknowingly perpetuated the urban legend. Go me.

The snow words thing is an urban legend?! My naivete is so sad.

"Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a locked-room mystery, "The Purloined Letter" is about hiding a clue in plain sight, etc.

We read those for Wednesday. Or, we were supposed to. I haven't gotten through them yet, but I must before I return the book.

The snow words thing is an urban legend?! My naivete is so sad.

I don't know how urban legendy it is. I think at one point, the commonly reported number (in the legend) got up to 400. The Inuit may well have more than one word for snow.

I would Snopes this, but I'm too lazy and still haven't eaten, which is bad.

The snow thing is a very truthy urban legend. I.e., no there are not 30 Inuit words for snow, but if you count phrases, and, hey, try it in English, you do get quite a few: hail, slush, sleet, hardpack, a light dusting, blizzard, whiteout, snowman snow...

The original legend was part of a thesis about how vocabulary may shape cognition, such that, if your native language has only 1 word for all the shades of green, then you see all shades of green as alike. But that's been demonstrated to be false, and also, when peole don't have a word for something, as with flaner, they just make one up, or borrow it from another language! Or say doohickey or thingamabobber.

According to my secret boyfriend, "QI" host Stephen Fry, it is an urban legend, and they only have four words for snow. They do, however, have thirty different kinds of demonstrative pronouns, whereas English only has four (this, that, these, those). They apparently have words that mean "the thing under that other thing" and "the thing near us that we can't actually see" and suchlike.

They do, however, have thirty different kinds of demonstrative pronouns, whereas English only has four (this, that, these, those).

Man would that (by which I mean the thing Dana pointed out in the post right above mine while I'm typing this now but which may be further above this when I actually hit Post Message) be useful!

I've never read "William Wilson". I think "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Masque of the Red Death" are my favorites. I haven't read them in a while.

Language Log on Inuits and snow. As you can see, it comes up often.

I recently went through a number of old-school horror stories on CD, and was left feeling alienated by a number of them. They didn't feel so much like stories as just retellings. Even in the ones where I didn't know what was coming (like House of Usher) there didn't seem to be anything to get spooked about. No anticipation, and very little compelling atmosphere.