Pulchritudinous

Discussion in 'Linguistics' started by Syzygys, Jul 10, 2008.

  1. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Yes, but your ability to think is constrained by your mastery of your language and your ability to communicate what you're thinking is constrained by your vocabulary. Sure, you can get through most of life just fine at Level 8 on my scale (10,000 words), but it's those other times that you'll let yourself down (and all the people who depend on you) if you're not closer to level 9 with 30,000 words.
    It's universal that people have a larger vocabulary of words they understand than words they could speak or write. It's generally fair to go slightly beyond the vocabulary you notice your listener use.

    "Pulchritudinous" is admittedly a poor example because it's a word someone would only use for humorous effect or just to show off. But just because "5 words can be substituted for some word" does NOT mean that they have identical meanings. Beautiful, pretty, gorgeous and pulchritudinous do not mean quite the same thing, and if you don't believe me make it your project tomorrow to walk up to twenty women and use each of those words five times. I guarantee you will get much different reactions, and I'll even let you throw out the cases in which the woman didn't understand the word.
    Normally those are the people I hang out with so I don't worry about taxing people's language ability. I don't have much in common with those other 80% so we don't find ourselves bonding. I don't worry about it on SciForums because almost everybody here is well educated. Even the teenagers are brighter and more knowledgeable than most American adults.
    The vast majority of the populations of the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have 12th-grade educations. I don't know the stats for Afrikaaners and Indians but if we're going to count them as anglophones, in my experience on the average they are better educated than most Americans.
    I can't speak for the rest of the members but I personally don't do that. I don't mind looking like a pompous ass, but as a professional communicator I do not ever want people to not understand me.

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    I use those words that are not part of their speaking vocabulary but they nonetheless understand. I studiously avoid the words that they truly don't know.

    But I do recognize a growing problem. Today the average university graduate reads at what in my day, fifty years ago, was called the 6th-grade level. So for all practical purposes, at least in America, you're right about a nation of eighth-graders. Or, sadly, they're not even that good. High schools are not doing their job when universities have to offer remedial English to freshmen, or when foreigners, notwithstanding pronunciation problems, know our language better than our own people do.
    Again, it doesn't mean quite the same thing as "beautiful." To stun is to shock, and "stunning" implies a shock. There's something about her that stops you dead in your tracks, perhaps renders you speechless. It's not even the same thing as gorgeous, which has a focus on elegance rather than shock. We could all walk up to a beautiful woman and start a conversation. We'd just babble incoherently if she were stunning. And if she were gorgeous, we might be feel unworthy and not approach her in the first place.
    It's a word people use as a joke, largely because of the phonetics and the obvious Latin origin. It just sounds funny Comics like W.C. Fields loved to toss around words like "pulchritude." However, "pulchritudinous" is really a stretch.
    Some dead people were douchebags and it's entirely fair to say so. Of course you wouldn't say that to their family a few days after the funeral, but it's okay to say it here. Slobodan Milosevic comes to mind right away.

    As a rare liberal-turned-libertarian, I didn't agree with Buckley very often. But I thought he was sincere and I thought he was honest in his rhetoric and didn't try to sway people with contrivances. That made him an honorable opponent. If Buckley argued against you, you had to come up with some good arguments and it often made you stop and examine your own positions.
     
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  3. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    I thought mofo was too strong and disrespectful, so I went with douchebag.

    I have a thread about him where we discussed and proved his douchebagness. I never namecall by the way...
     
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  5. Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

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    To me utilize means more than to simply use. It implies using something well and efficiently. I think it can also be used in negative sentences in ways that are not the same as 'use'. In instances where not using something is being wasteful.

    The middle managers are not being utilized.

    The middle managers are not being used.

    The second can be false even if the first is true.

    Though most of the time I think 'utilize' is overutilized, for example.
     
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  7. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    "Utilize" implies some sort of accounting. To utilize something is to use it efficiently, profitably, to maximum benefit, etc. You can use a lipstick to write a grocery list if you're desperate. But if you do it with a spreadsheet so you can save it, update it, e-mail it to your husband, and import it into your bookkeeping program, then you're utiliziing Excel.
     
  8. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    My father had a penchant for using extravagant and wordy expressions for no other reason than having a bit of fun, never to appear superior ( that absolutely is not his style and I've never met anyone who cares less about other people's opinions of himself).
    He might say, for example " I was convulsing in paroxisms of mirth" as opposed to 'I was pissing myself laughing'
    When searching for the nail clippers he'd say " has anybody seen the exungulators?"
    Dim sims were crepuscular sims.
    He had millions of these and at times they were overused and fell into the realm of bad Dad-jokes ( a sin I find myself increasingly guilty of).
    The family does have a very large vocabulary however and the tradition continues, Spud Empress and I never hold back or dumb down ( Spud Empress is one smart chicky and has a massive vocab.), ourkids all have a wonderful grasp of language and punctuation and if the morass of dumbfucks ( how's that for an impressive turn of phrase?) out there want to communicate in barely intelligible drawl, grunts and monosyllabic dross, it's their loss.
     

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