41–50 of 55 posts
The most striking thing about Randall Munroe's "Up Goer Five" comic [1] was that the word "computer" is on the list, but "thousand" isn't. "(Explained using only the ten hundred words people use the most often)" [1] http://www.xkcd.com/1133/
Now I understand somewhat better why I often end up ceasing midway through discourse, as my colloquists often end up interjecting requesting definition of whatever neologism has just emanated from lexicon into conversation.... a random sampling of words that I have just today been asked to define either do not feature in this list at all, or are 90,000+ in terms of use. Brobdingnagian, deleterious, autodidact, loquac…
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. 2. Never use a long word where a short one will do. 3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. 4. Never use the passive where you can use the active. 5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. 6. Break any of these rules sooner th…
The thing is, note "will do" in (2). There are many cases where a short word really won't do, lest you lose nuance and meaning.
So I'm wondering, if you just learned the 200 most popular words, you might get pretty far in learning a new language, no?
200? no. Try 2,000. That should be representable of a barely usable level of the language. If you are what might be described as fluent, you're probably at >20,000. Take this headline: JACUZZIS FOUND EFFECTIVE IN TREATING PHLEBITIS "EFFECTIVE" and "IN" are the only two words found in the first 2,000 words sorted by frequency, although "FOUND" is close. So with only 200 words you'd understand: WNPHMMVF SBHAQ RSSRPGVIR…
WNPHMMVF FOUND EFFECTIVE IN TREATING CUYROVGVF
And then some contextual knowledge of what sort of things get treated tells you that CUYROVGVF is a disease or injury, and WNPHMMVF is a medicine or therapy. So knowing 2,000 words and some grammar isn't quite fluent, but it's around the level of a middle-school child who has to ask what lots of nouns are.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, another person who talks like a book. I also get that quite regularly. I have a bit of a personal rule, though, where I never use a more complicated word when a simpler one would work. After all, conversation is at heart a means of communication. Although we might get a bit of a thrill from talking over people's heads, it doesn't really mean much of anything. And all it takes is one misuse -- for example, calling…
Brobdingnagian is a neologism though. Swift quoined it scarcely two centuries ago, which is a ... Lilliputian (sorry)... amount of time in linguistic terms. I suppose it also depends on what you consider to be contemporaneous. I'm my case, this era, which opened with the enlightenment... Agreed - never use a complicated word when a simple one will do - but you either have to turn verbose or lose nuance, as we're not…
It's true that there are sometimes nuances lost in the conversion from large to small, but there is far more nuance lost once your partner doesn't know what the hell you are saying. For you, Brobdingnagian might have some special nuance (I'm picking on that word because it is ridiculous to me), but to your partner it has no nuance or flavor -- they have no associations with that word, nor any grasp of any subtleties of meaning -- in fact they don't grasp the meaning at all. So if you are trying to get something across, it's simply a bad way to do it.
I mean, don't get me wrong -- I don't want to deride big-word-users. If you want to do to because you like it -- that's obviously fine. Also, if someone does happen to have a thing with Brobdingnagian, I guess you might have just made their day a lot better. But at some point, you have to acknowledge that obscure vocabulary is more of a hindrance than a boon to communication.
Now I understand somewhat better why I often end up ceasing midway through discourse, as my colloquists often end up interjecting requesting definition of whatever neologism has just emanated from lexicon into conversation.... a random sampling of words that I have just today been asked to define either do not feature in this list at all, or are 90,000+ in terms of use. Brobdingnagian, deleterious, autodidact, loquac…
Nah. I'm proud to say I got everything except Brobdingnagian, which on further investigation is more of a literary reference than a "real" word.
If you have the right kind of friends you can play "Who knows the most obscure word?". Everyone picks a word from memory, check each word's position (We used to use google ngrams, but this would work well.), whoever gets the least common word wins that round, repeat until it's not fun anymore. That's how I learned defenestrate, obsequious, and a few other words.
Now I understand somewhat better why I often end up ceasing midway through discourse, as my colloquists often end up interjecting requesting definition of whatever neologism has just emanated from lexicon into conversation.... a random sampling of words that I have just today been asked to define either do not feature in this list at all, or are 90,000+ in terms of use. Brobdingnagian, deleterious, autodidact, loquac…
(Sorry, I tried to resist, but I could not.)
So I'm wondering, if you just learned the 200 most popular words, you might get pretty far in learning a new language, no?
200? no. Try 2,000. That should be representable of a barely usable level of the language. If you are what might be described as fluent, you're probably at >20,000. Take this headline: JACUZZIS FOUND EFFECTIVE IN TREATING PHLEBITIS "EFFECTIVE" and "IN" are the only two words found in the first 2,000 words sorted by frequency, although "FOUND" is close. So with only 200 words you'd understand: WNPHMMVF SBHAQ RSSRPGVIR…
"Hmm, Jacuzzis is clearly a noun, so it must be the subject. So Jacuzzis found "effective"... wait, that doesn't make sense. "Effective" is not a company, how does one found "effective"? Oh, it must be the past tense of "find". OK, so these Jacuzzis found... effective? How does one find "effective"? And why was effective hiding in "treating phlebitis"? OK, whatever, maybe I could decipher this if I understand "treating phlebitis"... So it is a kind of disease that is... treating someone (or something)? How could a disease treat anyone? This sentence makes no sense!!"
If you think "Duh, that's ridiculous, nobody thinks like that", then you obviously never met a struggling English learner.
Now I understand somewhat better why I often end up ceasing midway through discourse, as my colloquists often end up interjecting requesting definition of whatever neologism has just emanated from lexicon into conversation.... a random sampling of words that I have just today been asked to define either do not feature in this list at all, or are 90,000+ in terms of use. Brobdingnagian, deleterious, autodidact, loquac…
Ah, another person who talks like a book. I also get that quite regularly. I have a bit of a personal rule, though, where I never use a more complicated word when a simpler one would work. After all, conversation is at heart a means of communication. Although we might get a bit of a thrill from talking over people's heads, it doesn't really mean much of anything. And all it takes is one misuse -- for example, calling…
Children may be precocious and tolerable. I recall the joy of finding new words - grownup words. Most people find it pretentious and condescending in adults. It is poor communication. Want a game of who can think of the most obscure word? Firstly I tried 'widdershins'. Let's exclude Brobdingnagian as an obvious neologism. (Not trolling - really can't see why you think it ain't?)
Now I understand somewhat better why I often end up ceasing midway through discourse, as my colloquists often end up interjecting requesting definition of whatever neologism has just emanated from lexicon into conversation.... a random sampling of words that I have just today been asked to define either do not feature in this list at all, or are 90,000+ in terms of use. Brobdingnagian, deleterious, autodidact, loquac…
Taking, as an example, the final sentence of your first paragraph: "Brobdingnagian, deleterious, autodidact, loquaciousness... are these really such strange vernacular?" we find a sentence that is grammatically incorrect, with the singular form of vernacular. Assuming a typographically damaged plural does no good, as these words are not vernaculars. We do no better with the assumption of an elided indefinite article ("are these really such [a] strange vernacular?") as the answer is trivially yes, attempting conversation using only these words (Brobdingnagian, deleterious, autodidact, and loquaciousness) would be an exercise of Cnutian futility. As the recurring problem in finding meaning in this sentence is this definition may I suggest that perhaps the primary issue is in the choice of words? I would suggest the substitution of "words" in place of "vernacular", as this recovers a perfectly sensible rhetorical question. Perhaps, in keeping with the theme of subtle distinction in word choice, "obscure" could be substituted for "strange", signifying the strangeness is rooted in rarity of use, rather than e.g. etymology.