Have You Swallowed the Dictionary?

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Do you ever get teased or criticized for using long words?

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I got abuse for using "quantitative" and "qualitative" in the office the other day. I could not think of any suitable alternatives.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Teasing is way worse than criticizing, I think; at least if you criticize someone for using "big words" there's a miniscule chance you're NOT just a defensive moron. What I hate though is this trend in popular culture (movies, TV, maybe real life too although I haven't seen it that much) where X will use a "big word" (that isn't especially scary or uncommon to anyone who's ever read a fucking book or general interest magazine or whatever) and Y will spend the next five minutes pointing this aberrant behavior out and making an example of X for being uppity.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Here here.

― W. Self, Friday, 27 June 2003 08:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Do you ever get teased or criticized for using long words?

Does a fish get teased for drinking water?

― Sommermute (Wintermute), Friday, 27 June 2003 08:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I just get looks of incomprehension. I have one acquaintance who gets quite annoying about it rolling his eyes and going "yes yes Matt you're very clever" when I've inadvertently used a word like "inadvertently". I've tried explaining that my deployment of an extensive vocabulary is merely my general mode of exposition, but he isn't having any.
N.B. That last bit may be a joke, before it gets holes picked in it by those brighter than I (i.e. lots of you)

― Matt (Matt), Friday, 27 June 2003 09:05 (twenty-two years ago)

would you care to elucidate?

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 27 June 2003 09:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Not really, I've used all the big words I know.

― Matt (Matt), Friday, 27 June 2003 09:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Used to happen all the time. Now I work in a library and it still happens occasionally. Can't say it bothers me. I just talk loudly and slowly back at anyone who says anything. And, luckily, half the time I'm hanging with Billy and Dan, who have vocabularies that make mine look very small indeed.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 27 June 2003 09:36 (twenty-two years ago)

In a seminar a couple of weeks ago:
Me: In the end it goes someway to illustrating that the cinematic vocabulary of the Indian subcontinent could be restrictive.
Them: Oh, get you with your big - (stops for a second, realising only one word will fit here that will undermine their teasing) know a lot of wordiness.

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 27 June 2003 10:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I hate it when people use big words when there are perfectly fine, common-speech alternatives available. I study at an university, and lots of my school mates use such word more often than it would be necessary. Because of this, I often decidedly revert back to my fifteen-year old street slang, just to prove them that you can be an university student without swallowing the dictionary.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 27 June 2003 10:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Here here.

Sorry, Will, that should be "Hear! Hear!"

In my work environment, and, to a more restricted degree, my actual job, a rich vocabulary is encouraged and its occasional stinging use relished. Ligneous! Inchoate! Gangrel! Hypognathous (that was about Greg Rusedski)!

Oh, we have a laugh.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Friday, 27 June 2003 10:31 (twenty-two years ago)

yes but tuomas big words in finnish are WAY bigger than big words anywhere else!!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 27 June 2003 10:33 (twenty-two years ago)

(Except Poland and Sri Lanka).

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 27 June 2003 10:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Kumarreksituteeskenteleenvaisehkollaismaisekkuudellisentelevaisukissaansakkaankopahan.

That's the longest Finnish word anyone's come up with. I have no idea what it means, but it's grammatically correct. (Finnish has case endings instead of propositions and postpositions, so words tend to look quite big. Then again, we don't have those "little words" you use.)

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 27 June 2003 10:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Michael, your pedantry manifests as verbatum encopresis since it misses the verisimilitude of the misspelling.

― W. Self, Friday, 27 June 2003 10:42 (twenty-two years ago)

languages like inuit or mohawk which are polysynthetic (i think that's the right term) rather than agglutinative (like finnish) can theoretically create words of limitless length.... also, a friend of mine (she's from nz too) now lives in l.a. and has been hassled for using words like "fortnight" and "surname" ("like, why don't you just say "last name"?)

― cameron, Friday, 27 June 2003 10:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Compound words are written without a gap in Finnish, so you could theoretically have such a word of infinite length. For example, the word "syvänmerenkalatankkipuhdistusyritysjohtajakonferenssi" would be "a conference of managers of deep sea fish tank cleaning companies" in English, and I could keep on adding new words to that ad infinitum. Of course, the meaning would soon be lost.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 27 June 2003 10:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I have been accused of having a taste for egregiously lanthanine words.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Friday, 27 June 2003 10:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Michael, your pedantry manifests as verbatum encopresis since it misses the verisimilitude of the misspelling.

That's as maybe, but a frescitalious attempt such as this to declive the nub of oscrention from your gowder to my sussabrowded trajism reeks of dizzy-horphed duophlasm.

And your books suck.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Friday, 27 June 2003 11:19 (twenty-two years ago)

That's as maybe, but a frescitalious attempt such as this to declive the nub of oscrention from your gowder to my sussabrowded trajism reeks of dizzy-horphed duophlasm.

That's a sexual thing, right?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 27 June 2003 11:24 (twenty-two years ago)

You said "sex"! Hahaha! Sex!

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 27 June 2003 11:26 (twenty-two years ago)

English can have a word of infinite* length without meaning too, obv.

*If you believe in a useful working definition of infinity which could be used here which as a matter of fact I don't. Which would also work in the Finish case.

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 27 June 2003 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

"Leaving already, Dr Johnson? Not staying for your pendigestatory interludiclude?"

― Sam (chirombo), Friday, 27 June 2003 11:28 (twenty-two years ago)

But would it be grammatically correct?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 27 June 2003 11:32 (twenty-two years ago)

The Merovingian to thread!

― teeny (teeny), Friday, 27 June 2003 15:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Did any of you French-speakers (there most be some of them here) understand what he said?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 27 June 2003 15:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Fuck all, I meant the Architect really. I understood just a couple of the naughty words from the Merovingian but that's about all the french I know, so I don't what he was saying exactly.

― teeny (teeny), Friday, 27 June 2003 15:19 (twenty-two years ago)

(google gives me this)

Merovingian swearing in french

"Nom de Dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de conard d'encule de ta mere"
It's like wiping your arse with silk, I love it.

Translation:
Nom de Dieu - Name of God
de putain - hooker, b*tch, s!ut
des fils de pute - son of a b*tch
de bordel - means whorehouse but in this sentance means something closer to "sh*t," we just don't really have translation for it
de merde - sh*t
de saloperie - bullsh*t
de connard - sh*thead/shita$$
d'encule de ta mere - this one I'm not completely sure on, but I'm pretty sure it means "mother f*cker" or "f*ck up your mother's a$$"

― teeny (teeny), Friday, 27 June 2003 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

"Leaving already, Dr Johnson? Not staying for your pendigestatory interludiclude?"

I really must get the DVD set.

I think the closest anyone has come to calling me on it is that I apparently write just like I talk.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 27 June 2003 15:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm totally fascinated by Finnish now. I think Tuomas should teach us all an online Finnish for Beginners class!

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 27 June 2003 15:39 (twenty-two years ago)

If I release an album, I'm going to call it _Syvänmerenkalatankkipuhdistusyritysjohtajakonferenssi_.

Ptee, you should have scoffed at your seminar-mates for not using the word "argot".

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 27 June 2003 15:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I got a bit of stick for my use of 'caesurae' in a report (on our programming practices). I realised quite quickly that using 'lacunae' in my recast sentence was not an improvement. They are of course perfectly cromulent words.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 27 June 2003 18:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I try to use "methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanylyalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanylglycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylalanylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylglutaminylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionylleucyalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleucylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylvalylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylalanylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosylglycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycylvalylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleucylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparaginylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylserylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanylglycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalyllysylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylprolylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalylglutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine" as often as I possibly can.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 27 June 2003 18:45 (twenty-two years ago)

..er

sorry!

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 27 June 2003 18:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I try to use other people as often as I can.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Saturday, 28 June 2003 03:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Has anyone noticed how on some American dramas for teenagers the teenagers talk in this weird way like they've swallowed a moderately wordy self-help book? Like on Dawson's Creek if someone's girlfriend goes off they'll say 'It's okay, Dawson, I guess if you'd affirmed her tendency to negate the obvious sub-text of the conversation she would have stuck around'. They talk like that on Buffy, etc.

― maryann (maryann), Saturday, 28 June 2003 04:56 (twenty-two years ago)

In the end it goes someway to illustrating that the cinematic vocabulary of the Indian subcontinent could be restrictive.

This really impressed me for 2 reasons. First, I didn't know that "someway" was even a word and secondly, as far as I can tell, the sentence is very laborious in making what seems to be an ironic point. But, then again, I'm not sure if I even understand it.

Does it mean, "This goes to show that the very descriptive and rich vocabulary of the Indian subcontinent might actually be more limiting than liberating"?? If that's what it means, it's wonderfully ironic because it is exactly the situation you've found yourself in with your, ah, - (stops for a second, realising only one word will fit here that will undermine their teasing) "know a lot of wordiness."

― Scaredy cat (Natola), Saturday, 28 June 2003 05:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I read someone like Nabokov, whose third language was English, and I think to myself, Jeez, my vocabulary is a shame. Or Henry Miller... man, that guy could come up with some words. And then I go to work, where I talk (as Ned said) the way I write, and people are all impressed with the big words I use. Not that they think I'm showing off, just that they think, "Oh wow. Smart guy." Which I enjoy. But it also makes me think, "Most people's vocabulary is really a shame," which then makes me sad.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Saturday, 28 June 2003 05:36 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 28 June 2003 05:57 (twenty-two years ago)

well put.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Saturday, 28 June 2003 05:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm totally fascinated by Finnish now. I think Tuomas should teach us all an online Finnish for Beginners class!

Should we have a board called "I Love Finnish"? Or "Ask a Finn"? ;)

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 30 June 2003 07:17 (twenty-two years ago)

eleven months pass...

Bosko Balaban Stats For Season

Name Bosko Balaban
Team Aston Villa
Total Appearances 0
Starts 0
Substituted 0
Total Minutes Played 0
Avg Minutes Played Per Start 0
Goals 0
Avg Goal Mins When Starting 0.0
Avg Mins Played/Goal Scored 0
Goals Scored As Sub 0
Number of Bookings 0
Total Booking Minutes 0
Avg Bookings Per Start 0
Number of Red Cards 0
Total Red Card Minutes 0
Avg Red Cards Per Start 0
Avg Booking Minutes When Starting 0.0

― bosko, Monday, 14 June 2004 17:42 (twenty-one years ago)

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