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On the use of highbrow words in English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Austin Newbie United States Joined 7085 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 11 17 July 2005 at 1:24am | IP Logged |
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A great example of the uneducated using big words to sound smart is Mike Tyson.
Some quotes: "My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want his heart! I want to eat his children!" "My power is discombobulatingly devastating. I could feel his muscle tissues collapse under my force. It's ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm." Edited by Austin on 17 July 2005 at 1:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes  12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 11 17 July 2005 at 3:28am | IP Logged |
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French-speaking Swiss working-class people have a word for working-class people who try to speak with 'chosen' words in order to impress others, they call it 'raffiner' (to refine). For instance, they might say 'Il fréquente une fille de Genève, elle est jolie mais elle raffine' ('He is seeing a girl from Geneva, she is cute but she speaks with unecessarily refined words').
This must exist in all languages spoken in societies with some social mobility. As someone noted, I think that in English the very large number of words makes it more tempting to use such words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7205 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 11 of 11 17 July 2005 at 7:16am | IP Logged |
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I saw some video on Nixon that included Henry
Kissinger. I was quite impressed with Kissinger's vocabulary. At the time, I thought perhaps his word selection may have been influenced by cognate words that may not have been as uncommon in Russian. I don't know if that is the case though. The few Russians I've met have all seemed quite articulate and friendly by the way. In the US, vocabulary programs are frequently sold with the notion that people who have a better vocabulary make more money. That's not a universal truth, but there probably is some truth in it. SAT, GMAT, and other tests for getting into American universities will reward the person with a big vocabulary too. When I'm reviewing a document where it seems the author may have used an electronic thesaurus to impress; I'll usually make a joke like, it would be neat to write a macro that would replace every word with the longest alternate word in the thesaurus. (This is based on knowing the author well enough that they can take a joke.) I figure if they can't write clearly enough to check their own document, it's unfair to subject the readers to further obfuscation with a thesaurus invasion. Edited by luke on 17 July 2005 at 7:20am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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