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xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech
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xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech
Alt text:
Thank you to linguist Gretchen McCulloch for teaching me about phonetic assimilation, and for teaching me that if you stand around in public reading texts from a linguist and murmuring example phrases to yourself, people will eventually ask if you're okay.
I once met a girl in a bar who spoke such absolutely perfect and grammatically correct German she did sound like an alien impersonating a human.
Or someone who very much wants to show that she's better than you.
Turns out she wasn't from Germany at all. She was an immigrant from Slovakia, who had learnt German at such a high level that it sounded weird.
I've had Americans ask me the meaning of words I've used in a sentence. Like "what's tranquil?" (I'm non-native.)
I blame reading.
Speaking English using French vocabulary is a real cheat code
English speakers can really enhance their vocabulary when they know French. English does have a lot of French words that most people don't use anymore but if you use them, your vocabulary becomes off-the-charts intellectual.
Pseudo-intellectual. A clear communicator uses the simplest, precise word that has the precise meaning they intend, reaching most commonly for the Germanic vocabulary unless they need the subtler shades of meaning from the Latinate. A pseudo-intellectual uses Latinate vocabulary to conceal what they're actually saying or to intimidate people who aren't as comfortable on the Latinate side of the fence. It's a form of intellectual bullying that, to my mind, makes the person using it look insecure (not to mention likely dishonest).
A good communicator's motto should be "eschew gratuitous obfuscation (see what I mean?)".
I was thinking more of Spanish, but yup. Same thing.
Yeah, coming from Portuguese, I know by hearth all of the refined vocabulary to be found in English.
But the mundane is a whole other world.
Like "bamboozled"!
Anglo-language conversations plus Franco-vocabulary utilization, remains a veritable trick code
De rien