bolson: (Default)
[personal profile] bolson
Apparently at some point I started assuming I was done learning the English language. I think I'm pretty well educated and have a pretty good grasp of the language as it is used these days. Now at least half the time I hear a word I don't know I question the judgement of the user of that word. Are they trying to sound uppity by using an obscure word? Why can't they use something more plain so that they'd be more widely understood? Does that obscure word really have anything that the common ones don't?

Date: 2009-05-31 01:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] queen-of-wands.livejournal.com
I'm excessively educated and I'm learning new words all the time. Sometimes they turn out to be in common usage and I somehow never noticed them. Sometimes they're specific to a domain I don't know well. Sometimes they're obscure but say something slightly different from any other word . Sometimes they're just plain obscure. But I appreciate flexibility, creativity, precision, and beauty in language, so I'm happy to learn new words.

Date: 2009-05-31 10:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] surrealestate.livejournal.com
All of this, yes. I agree. :)

Date: 2009-05-31 03:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] roozle.livejournal.com
[livejournal.com profile] palmwiz and I just had a conversation about this sort of thing when he used the word "desert" in the sense of "deserving reward" in conversation. Now that I think of the phrase "one's just deserts" it's not as uncommon a usage as I thought at the time but it struck me at the time as an obscure word choice.

I also notice that my reading vocabulary is way larger the vocabulary of words I expect to hear in conversation. I don't think that's unusual.

Date: 2009-05-31 07:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chamois.livejournal.com
I appreciate learning new words. Some people may use big words to be uppity. But I think using elaborate words is kind of like being able to knit a fancy sweater. It is an interesting creative pursuit and can produce art in its own right.

Date: 2009-06-01 07:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] truthspeaker.livejournal.com
There's a bit of each side. Some people are trying to intellectually intimidate. Others really are using the word because they have heard it used in that context before and liked it. Still others just like the word itself or how it sounds.

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