use big words whenever you can
coz it makes you sound smarter.
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?
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.
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...
Huh. Whut'd ya say? Thems too many werds.
Okay.
You have me combobulated now.
Shakespeare Jim ,
Oh Lord is the world ready for that ???
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
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 [COLOR="Indigo"]obsequious[/COLOR], 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.
Ah, there's the rub a dub dub.
Okay.
You have me combobulated now.
this means you overstand?
Hmmmmm.
I am speaking English. I just know more of it than you do.
Worthy of The Cellar Hall of Fame !
Okay.
You have me combobulated now.
Would you prefer being combobulated or discombobulated ?
[YOUTUBE]Co7mYzuFOUo[/YOUTUBE]
[YOUTUBE]Co7mYzuFOUo[/YOUTUBE]
Beat me to to it. :thumb:
Dude i went to school with folks like that ,
And they ALLWAYS put a T at the end of my name
Would you prefer being combobulated or discombobulated ?
I'd prefer to be drunk and laid.
And they ALLWAYS put a T at the end of my name
I might be missing something here.
my name is Chris not Christ , though i DO have my Moments
I'm too obstreperous to do what I'm told, so no, I will not use big words.
His given name is Jesus, so they'd call him Jesust.
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"?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
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.
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.
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:
Potporri? Isn't that when you assemble a joint from the remains of several disparate ones?
Potporri? Isn't that when you assemble a joint from the remains of several disparate ones?
EXACTLY!
:D
Don't try using the word "niggardly". Talk about getting in trouble....
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
I use mitigate.
Lojack will most likely mitigate some of it's own cost with the discount you'll receive on your insurance premium....
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.
I like "disingenuous" - a polite word with a pointed tip
and specious is another one, ooh and duplicitous
All exceptionally cromulent words
One should frequently cultivate obfuscatory sesquipedelian circumlocutions.
man, you guys are nerds.
*applies black eyeliner*
One should frequently cultivate obfuscatory sesquipedelian circumlocutions.
The editor of our local paper has a bumper sticker that says: Eschew Obfuscation
One of my daughters loves to argue.
At a dinner table one night she came up with:
"Compromise, never capitulate"
See, that's the difference between daughters and cats.
The only thing Diz brings up at dinner is... well, dinner.
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!
[SIZE=6]facetious[/SIZE]
Yes, but how do you pronounce it?
by modulation of the airflow with my lips and tongue, just like everybody else.
pronounce it any way you like, just pronounce it [size=8]BIG[/size]
Yes, but how do you pronounce it?
"It". Sounds like "git" without the "g".