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"A straggle of gossamer wool shreds shorn off from the pearly mass"

What image does this mean? It is talking about clouds in the sky at dusk.

It is too poetic to understand. Is this even viable English?

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    You already told us what it means or is describing (clouds in the sky at dusk). You need to tell us which word or words you do not understand in context. Grammar itself seems to be OK though.
    – user3169
    Jun 13, 2014 at 20:37

1 Answer 1

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It's perfectly valid English (assuming it's poetry, not normal discourse).

1: a straggle - an untidy or irregularly arranged mass or group

What kind of straggle? One composed of...

2: shreds - pieces cut or torn off, especially in narrow strips

Those shreds are further qualified (adjectivally) by gossamer and wool (you can look those up yourself).

What does the sentence say about that straggle?. That it was...

3: shorn (past participle of shear - to remove by or as if by cutting or clipping with a sharp instrument)

Shorn from what? From the...

4: pearly - like a pearl, especially in being white or lustrous
5: mass - a body of coherent matter, usually of indefinite shape and often of considerable size mass

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    I can't help being reminded of Carroll's Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur: ‘“For instance, if I wished, Sir,/ Of mutton-pies to tell, /Should I say ‘dreams of fleecy flocks / Pent in a wheaten cell’?” / “Why, yes,” the old man said: “that phrase / Would answer very well.”’ Jun 13, 2014 at 23:55
  • @StoneyB: Neat! I shall have to tell my chef/housemate that en croute is now passé. Along with all those other gallicisms which we must repudiate for the duration of the World Cup (being the period when by tradition we hate the cheese-eating surrender monkeys even worse than usual! :) I kid you not - I just got a free copy of The Sun newspaper shoved through my letterbox today, where the Top 10 Reasons Why It's Good To Be British includes the fact that being British means you're not French! Anyway, tomorrow I shall demand beef in a wheaten cell - bugger that boeuf en croute!. Jun 14, 2014 at 0:09