The reason the names became more ostentatiously biblical is because of The Great Awakening.

The reason the faces were more weathered is because The Great Awakening hadn't made huge inroads into the "everyone getting blind drunk on a daily basis" phenomenon, particularly among the soldiery.

Dewey Decimal System (or whatever they call the current library shelving scheme) is SO good for finding books on a particular subject.

At my big research-1 state school with a 6-story main library, I'd get entire research projects done by looking up the listing for 1 book and perusing that shelf.

That's incredibly kind of you considering your opinions, but no thank you. I'm no fiction writer.

If I become president we’re finally getting a third HELLBOY movie directed by Guillermo del Toro.

"I got tha chainsaw"
"Ah, yess, und phallic object."
"I'll skin your ass raw"
*scribbles something in notebook*

If that's not you, then I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry a guy wrote novels in a way you don't approve of and a bunch of other people liked it; it sucks when that happens. But that doesn't make it incorrect somehow, or even unusual. It just means you didn't like it, and that's reason enough not to read it.

Most readers, though, are willing to tolerate certain adjustments in diction and syntax to achieve things unattempted yet in everyday speech. It's why we still read old poems rather than slamming Paradise Lost shut & declaring that no one talks like that.

As for your belief that the language of literature should not notably diverge from that of everyday speech, this is a precept invented by a handful of English perverts in the early 1800s and only ever occasionally followed since. If you like it, more power to you.

Re: McCarthy, he may have been aware of this, as he rarely granted interviews, possibly to preserve the illusion that he really was a Miltonic sage declaiming history in speech heavy with percussives and subtly iambic. But he also was a little old-fashioned in how he talked when he was interviewed.

Most people do make grammatical errors in their speech, regardless of education. The argument for strict adherence to grammar is that when you write, you cannot use all the tonal/nonverbal cues that help you convey meaning in speech and allow for a little irregularity in grammar/usage.

I dunno, it's nice for the top choice to actually be a comedy. Much bigger issue is the Chaplin they rank highest.