-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
why thing all use big word when small will do
- Thread starter Tesseract
- Start date
- Status
Rug Monkey
Member
You're suffering from hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
Therefore I shall be indulging in floccinoccinihilipilification when I opine that your position is lacking in meritorious content.
Love Steinbeck though
FrenchToastDisciple
Member
Because no two words have exactly the same meaning when it comes to connotation, not to mention that words are things on pages and sounds that people say, not just vessels that communicate some kind of stock meaning divorced from any specific real-world context.
Also, it's fun and rewarding to find the exact right word to use in sentences, either written or spoken. It's a testament to the amazing depth of culture. If you don't know what a word means that someone uses, look it up and see if the same meaning could truly be relayed through a different word. If the person who used the word is using the word even remotely connected to established definitions, I doubt you would find that a similar, but more common word would've meant the same thing.
I mean, Jesus people, just because you don't understand some words doesn't mean we have to go on some sort of anti-intellectual tirade or that anyone who uses words you don't understand are pretentious or misguided.
(not reacting to anyone in the thread, just the mainstream culture generally I guess).
Also, it's fun and rewarding to find the exact right word to use in sentences, either written or spoken. It's a testament to the amazing depth of culture. If you don't know what a word means that someone uses, look it up and see if the same meaning could truly be relayed through a different word. If the person who used the word is using the word even remotely connected to established definitions, I doubt you would find that a similar, but more common word would've meant the same thing.
I mean, Jesus people, just because you don't understand some words doesn't mean we have to go on some sort of anti-intellectual tirade or that anyone who uses words you don't understand are pretentious or misguided.
(not reacting to anyone in the thread, just the mainstream culture generally I guess).
hipbabboom
Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
I wish there was a browser plugin that takes a selected text and runs the words through a thesaurus to maximize the length of the words and also the obscurity and rarity. I feel intelligent when I can't successfully communicate with others.
Surface of Me
I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
It can get pretty frustrating. Honestly, if I use a word and you think I'm doing it to look smart or some absurd shit like that, I just think you're a dumbass.
MisterNoisy
Member
It's an easy way to separate 'people that are educated' from 'people that went to college'.
Sometimes they sound cooler, sometimes they mean different things, sometimes you just want to sound like a pretentious dick. I like those words that sound sort of swearish but aren't, and you can use them to be really condescending. Why tell someone they're being an ass when you can tell them they're being asinine? why call someone a pussy when you can call them pusillanimous?
though i kind of hate people that do that and take themselves seriously.
I think it's most fun to mix fancy vocabulary with third-grade slang, and make up silly words that almost follow rules - like pluralizing shit that ends with -us into -i, or using "vincible" as the opposite of "invincible."
for the record, people in real life think i'm an idiot, but hey, it's fun.
though i kind of hate people that do that and take themselves seriously.
I think it's most fun to mix fancy vocabulary with third-grade slang, and make up silly words that almost follow rules - like pluralizing shit that ends with -us into -i, or using "vincible" as the opposite of "invincible."
for the record, people in real life think i'm an idiot, but hey, it's fun.
Impotaku
Member
I prefer to use the full proper words than type with ugly corrupted shortened txt speak. Technology improves at an amazing rate yet people seem to get lazier and lazier nowdays it's like everything is such an effort for them, it's not that hard to use a fraction more effort and have something that doesn't show you up as an illiterate idiot with a keyboard.
bcuz if u rite lik thes then ur dumb, thrz no excuz 4 it.
Seems nowdays a lot of people no longer care, shortening everything you type just makes you look uneducated and ignorant. Makes me wonder what schools teach nowdays.
bcuz if u rite lik thes then ur dumb, thrz no excuz 4 it.
Seems nowdays a lot of people no longer care, shortening everything you type just makes you look uneducated and ignorant. Makes me wonder what schools teach nowdays.
And it should.
Sometimes a bigger word will let you use fewer words total, but yeah, sometimes people are just trying to sound smart. I knew a guy once who kept one of those word-of-the-day calendars, and would be constantly trying to shoehorn them into his speech without any real sense of what they meant or how to elegantly phrase things. It was awful. Or, like, I've helped people in school with essays before where they've clearly been using their thesaurus to spice things up, and it just comes off as funny because they have no idea what they're saying. It's so obvious what they're doing to anyone who actually knows the words they're using, but they think it's what they have to do to make their essay sound smart.
Most people like the sound of their own voice and choose to be as verbose as possible because they enjoy it. Using big words is a good way to keep yourself talking.
Other people just try to flex their language skills.
Normal people will use them if no other words fit what they're trying to say or the big words does a better job of making their point.
Other people just try to flex their language skills.
Normal people will use them if no other words fit what they're trying to say or the big words does a better job of making their point.
I think you're misunderstanding what the OP is saying. He's referring to people using big words to sound smart instead of using them because they convey specific meanings.
See memos at big companies for an example.
jediyoshi
Member
I'm not sure either is mutually exclusive to what OP actually wrote.
Escape Goat
Member
i have a 2th ache.
CountAntonius
Member
Yar, tis why I just pirate speak.
heliosRAzi
Banned
Why is this the only 1984 in this thread? GAF, you suck.
lol, tedious is showing off? You seem to have a warped perspective of the words that people know.
Doing a search for the word tedious on Neogaf yields 33,400 results:
https://www.google.co.uk/?q=site:neogaf.com+tedious
CarpeDeezNutz
Member
He title rite good.
Hours Left
Member
Because language is a beautifully nuanced beast.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Well, in non-narrative texts the point of "big words" is specificity, so you can avoid using three words to say the same thing over and over. I can see it bleeding to narrative, specifically non-fiction, when you try to emulate the jargon of the setting where the story occurs. Like say a medical or political story. But other than that, it is the same argument as "art for the sake of art".
CarpeDeezNutz
Member
Title change haha.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Woah, slow down there, tiger. Just say what you mean.
PJV3
Member
Is it a mod mucking about, or the original?
CarpeDeezNutz
Member
Thread title change. Original was "why use bigger words when a smaller one will do" or something like that.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
Not sure what you're reading OP. After the 1960s the whole "write big words to sound smart" trend more or less died out. If you see a big word, it's because it's the best word to describe the situation.
Rest
All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
That still doesn't explain the OP.
David Incorporated Esq.
Member
Exactly, whenever I use a complex word in normal conversation it's not because I circled it on my word of the day calendar, my brain just throws it in there as the best fit.
Sometimes I surprise myself with the words I use, it's fun.
Holy Order Sol
Member
Ask ShinMaruku. Or don't. He might actually answer.
A Fish Aficionado
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
Imagine a piano keyboard, eh, 88 keys, only 88 and yet, and yet, hundreds of new melodies, new tunes, new harmonies are being composed upon hundreds of different keyboards every day in Dorset alone. Our language, tiger, our language: hundreds of thousands of available words, frillions of legitimate new ideas, so that I can say the following sentence and be utterly sure that nobody has ever said it before in the history of human communication: "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers." Perfectly ordinary words, but never before put in that precise order. A unique child delivered of a unique mother.
Tesseract
Banned
Imagine a piano keyboard, eh, 88 keys, only 88 and yet, and yet, hundreds of new melodies, new tunes, new harmonies are being composed upon hundreds of different keyboards every day in Dorset alone. Our language, tiger, our language: hundreds of thousands of available words, frillions of legitimate new ideas, so that I can say the following sentence and be utterly sure that nobody has ever said it before in the history of human communication: "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers." Perfectly ordinary words, but never before put in that precise order. A unique child delivered of a unique mother.
i miss the fry and laurie combo meal
no it hasn't, most textbooks are goobery balderdash and bunkum
bbq
"God's Beard!"
Member
Because eloquence is sweet.
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."
Easy. It's a cultural barrier so the dominant rich class can keep being dominant in a way where everyone *could* technically achieve. It's to not let people in.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674510410/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Read that
Regret Upon Approval
Member
Sometimes the word gets your intent across better.
Sometimes people tend to try hard to come across smart. Though, that comes with its own set of identifying flags like: usage of big words no one uses, many uses of big words seemingly subbed in to replace common terms/phrases, and inability to convey anything of importance buried in endless fluff.
So unless someone is setting off a bunch of other flags, they are simply trying to not come across as a caveman.
Sometimes people tend to try hard to come across smart. Though, that comes with its own set of identifying flags like: usage of big words no one uses, many uses of big words seemingly subbed in to replace common terms/phrases, and inability to convey anything of importance buried in endless fluff.
So unless someone is setting off a bunch of other flags, they are simply trying to not come across as a caveman.
- Status