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-   -   use big words whenever you can (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=26385)

jimhelm 11-25-2011 11:08 AM

use big words whenever you can
 
coz it makes you sound smarter.

zippyt 11-25-2011 11:11 AM

Zat so ??

jimhelm 11-25-2011 11:13 AM

dodally

zippyt 11-25-2011 11:17 AM

Diddly Do !!

infinite monkey 11-25-2011 11:17 AM

Yes, people should talk dumb and pretend to have a very limited vocabulary so as not to make the truly dumb actually look dumb.

The stupid need self-esteem too. Won't you think of the stupid?

Sundae 11-25-2011 11:28 AM

Hmmmmm.
I resemble this remark.

I admire people who ask me what a word means. A teacher asked me what obsequious meant earlier this year. She thought it was a great word. And in fact I had asked a teacher what it meant when I was 15 - and I remember it precisely because it was in a poem I wanted to read for my English Lit oral assessment. Although I've come across it since.

The flip side is I've sometimes been asked to "speak English!" when I've used a word I assume is in common usage, not something obscure only a crossword or Scrabble fan would know. I am speaking English. I just know more of it than you do.

Of course I never say that. But the inverse snobbery does put me in my place.
Which is why I adored this place ever since I fell through the rabbit-hole.

You might have meant something else entirely, Jim. or more likely been in a situation where your comment is justified.
You're no slouch on the vocab front after all.

I just have a large portion of fries on my shoulder.

jimhelm 11-25-2011 11:29 AM

I will not!

I won't

I shall not

I shan't

I just said, 'For the nonce' to a customer, and he understood it. I was pleased. Now, nonce is NOT a big word....but it comes from the same place as more embiggened words, so I'm counting it.

Mayhaps, what I really meant was talk like Shakespeare...

infinite monkey 11-25-2011 11:30 AM

Huh. Whut'd ya say? Thems too many werds.

jimhelm 11-25-2011 11:31 AM

contrarian~!!

Sundae 11-25-2011 11:31 AM

Okay.
You have me combobulated now.

infinite monkey 11-25-2011 11:33 AM

Conan the contrarian.

zippyt 11-25-2011 11:33 AM

Shakespeare Jim ,
Oh Lord is the world ready for that ???

jimhelm 11-25-2011 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sundae (Post 775609)
A teacher asked me what obsequious meant earlier this year. She thought it was a great word. And in fact I had asked a teacher what it meant when I was 15 - and I remember it precisely because it was in a poem

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Martin
Spoken intro:

Thank you. You know folks, when I was a kid, I was pretty close to my grandmother and she used to sing a song to me when I was about this high. It always meant something to me and I'd like to do it for you right now because it does have meaning in today's world even . . . all these years, you know those, even during the "hip drug days" you know when everybody was supposed to be so cool and everything had double meanings and this little simple tune would keep coming back to me and I think it kinda guided me through those years and I'd like to do this song for you right now, I think it might have a little meaning for you, so here it goes.

Song

Be courteous, kind and forgiving,
Be gentle and peaceful each day,
Be warm and human and grateful,
And have a good thing to say.

Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,
Be witty and happy and wise,
Be honest and love all your neighbors,
Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.

Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus,
Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,
Criticize things you don't know about,
Be oblong and have your knees removed.

Be tasteless, rude, and offensive,
Live in a swamp and be three dimensional,
Put a live chicken in your underwear,
Get all excited and go to a yawning festival.

O.K. everybody!

Be courteous, kind and forgiving,
Be gentle and peaceful each day,
Be warm and human and grateful,
And have a good thing to say.

Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,
(O.K. everybody on this!)
Be witty and happy and wise,
Be honest and love all your neighbors,
Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.
(Let 'em hear you outside!)

Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus,
(Everybody sing!)
Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,
Criticize things you don't know about,
Be oblong and have your knees removed.

(Ladies only)
Be tasteless, rude, and offensive,
(Now the men)
Live in a swamp and be three dimensional,
(Everybody)
Put a live chicken in your underwear,
Go into a closet and suck eggs.


infinite monkey 11-25-2011 11:34 AM

Ah, there's the rub a dub dub.

jimhelm 11-25-2011 11:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sundae (Post 775615)
Okay.
You have me combobulated now.

this means you overstand?

Sundae 11-25-2011 11:42 AM

hatstand

Lamplighter 11-25-2011 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sundae (Post 775609)
Hmmmmm.
I am speaking English. I just know more of it than you do.

Worthy of The Cellar Hall of Fame !

Lamplighter 11-25-2011 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sundae (Post 775615)
Okay.
You have me combobulated now.

Would you prefer being combobulated or discombobulated ?

footfootfoot 11-25-2011 11:56 AM


Spexxvet 11-25-2011 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by footfootfoot (Post 775634)

Beat me to to it. :thumb:

zippyt 11-25-2011 12:35 PM

Dude i went to school with folks like that ,

And they ALLWAYS put a T at the end of my name

Sundae 11-25-2011 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lamplighter (Post 775631)
Would you prefer being combobulated or discombobulated ?

I'd prefer to be drunk and laid.

Sundae 11-25-2011 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zippyt (Post 775645)
And they ALLWAYS put a T at the end of my name

I might be missing something here.

zippyt 11-25-2011 12:48 PM

my name is Chris not Christ , though i DO have my Moments

regular.joe 11-25-2011 12:51 PM

I'm too obstreperous to do what I'm told, so no, I will not use big words.

footfootfoot 11-25-2011 12:52 PM

His given name is Jesus, so they'd call him Jesust.

monster 11-25-2011 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimhelm (Post 775611)
I just said, 'For the nonce' to a customer, and he understood it.

Were you giving him a bumper sticker that says: "Seriously kid, run like hell, there's no puppy here"?

DanaC 11-25-2011 02:28 PM

One thing that really winds me up, is when I use a word that isn't madly obscure, but which someone else hasn't come across before, and they act like I am somehow bizarre for knowing and using that word.

Tough to think of one off the top of my head, but I'm talking about a word like *thinks*...mitigate, or caveat.

There was this whole thing where the council pledged to rewrite all its public documents and communications into 'plain English'. Apparently, the word 'facilitate' is too obscure and should be replaced with 'assist' or 'help'....


Wtf? I mean...I realise they have similar definitions, but they aren't identical and they have specific uses.


I'm with Sundae on this. I don't have even the slightest problem with other people's vocabularies. I often like it when I hear a word that's unfamiliar to me, or a familiar word used in an unfamiliar way. It has never been a problem for me that some people don't have the same joy in words that I have and therefore didn't spend their childhood and adolescence chasing new words for their collection :p It only bothers me that some seem to have a problem with my vocabulary and word use.

ok.....serious rant done with....

On a lighter note: one of my students in their recent assignment mixed up the word 'theory' and 'theology'. So I was treated to a paragraph about the new 'scientific theology' that sprang up in the wake of Cook's voyages :p

Sundae 11-25-2011 02:46 PM

Jim was funning with us here.

But it's great to have you back.
Now get into the panto GTG thread, stat.
Except I have a worry I might be seeing JB without you this year, hon.
Due to Pilau's situation...

Back to language, I confused emancipated with emaciated as a teen.
Not that much of a strecth when writing about slaves.
Still have to stop and think about hubris and gravitas.
I blame The League of Gentlemen and Ian M Banks.

It helps.

Aliantha 11-25-2011 03:40 PM

I find four letter words work very well in some applications. Much more so than any other number of letters.

Some people are just too fucking dumb for words and you have to use little one to explain just exactly what sort of a moron they are.

Glinda 11-27-2011 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanaC (Post 775675)
One thing that really winds me up, is when I use a word that isn't madly obscure, but which someone else hasn't come across before, and they act like I am somehow bizarre for knowing and using that word.

My sis-in-law (no great shakes in the words dept; she pronounces potpourri with a "t") once told my mother that I was "snooty" because I sometimes use words she doesn't know. :eyebrow:

Griff 11-27-2011 03:18 PM

Potporri? Isn't that when you assemble a joint from the remains of several disparate ones?

Glinda 11-27-2011 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griff (Post 776057)
Potporri? Isn't that when you assemble a joint from the remains of several disparate ones?

EXACTLY!

http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/pbl0041l.jpg

:D

Big Sarge 11-27-2011 04:09 PM

Don't try using the word "niggardly". Talk about getting in trouble....

zippyt 11-27-2011 04:18 PM

Yeah the White NAACP directer of finance got fired over that a few years ago ,
Propper use , bad judgement to use it when addressing the the Whole assembly

jimhelm 11-27-2011 06:42 PM

I use mitigate.

Lojack will most likely mitigate some of it's own cost with the discount you'll receive on your insurance premium....

monster 11-27-2011 06:46 PM

facetious

Lamplighter 11-27-2011 06:53 PM

A city planner told me they would have to cut down 7 old-growth (~150 yr) Douglas Firs
along our property line for a new light rail line. "But," she said sweetly,
"The City would mitigate them by planting 7 new seedlings elsewhere on our property"

Mitigate ? In my life time ? Yeah sure, that'll work.

Lamplighter 11-27-2011 06:55 PM

I like "disingenuous" - a polite word with a pointed tip

footfootfoot 11-27-2011 07:55 PM

and specious is another one, ooh and duplicitous

All exceptionally cromulent words

ZenGum 11-28-2011 12:58 AM

One should frequently cultivate obfuscatory sesquipedelian circumlocutions.

Trilby 11-28-2011 05:06 AM

man, you guys are nerds.


*applies black eyeliner*

footfootfoot 11-28-2011 07:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZenGum (Post 776120)
One should frequently cultivate obfuscatory sesquipedelian circumlocutions.

The editor of our local paper has a bumper sticker that says: Eschew Obfuscation

Lamplighter 11-28-2011 07:51 AM

One of my daughters loves to argue.
At a dinner table one night she came up with:

"Compromise, never capitulate"

Sundae 11-28-2011 11:18 AM

See, that's the difference between daughters and cats.
The only thing Diz brings up at dinner is... well, dinner.

DanaC 11-28-2011 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sundae (Post 775677)
Jim was funning with us here.

But it's great to have you back.
Now get into the panto GTG thread, stat.
Except I have a worry I might be seeing JB without you this year, hon.
Due to Pilau's situation...


Ach, I know Jim was just avin a laff, but what you said in your response set off one of my regular bugbears :p

*fingers crossed* Pil's doin ok. New meds working a treat. Still a very frail (and timorous?) wee beastie, but enjoying food and walks. I have high hopes I'll be there at least for the one night!

HungLikeJesus 12-05-2011 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by monster (Post 776085)
facetious

Yes, but how do you pronounce it?

BigV 12-05-2011 10:17 PM

by modulation of the airflow with my lips and tongue, just like everybody else.

monster 12-06-2011 06:07 AM

pronounce it any way you like, just pronounce it BIG

Spexxvet 12-06-2011 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus (Post 778029)
Yes, but how do you pronounce it?

"It". Sounds like "git" without the "g".


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