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This is the Great Debates forum. If you don't understand polysyllabic (i.e., big) words, why do you think you can contribute to great debates?
That's not what I meant.
I tend to use polysyllabic words because I want to use the word that means what I want to express. I've been told that I come off as a know-it-all, and "people don't like that". If I choose to NOT use the word I want, in order to avoid looking like a know-it-all, then I am inherently talking down to the person.
My problem with the Dear Abby advice was that somehow I should be able to avoid talking down to people AND avoid using polysyllabic words at the same time. In my mind, that means that I can't really express what I mean because I won't be using the words of my choice. I don't talk that way to try to impress anyone. It's what comes naturally to me.
What's the point of having words if you can't use them?
Several of these posts remind me of the Dear Abby column this past week that really irritated me.
A professor was seeking advice regarding his in-laws' opinion that he comes across as patronizing during conversations.
I couldn't get past the recommendation: don't talk down to people, but don't use polysyllabic words either.
Am I the only one who sees an inconsistency here?
Dear Abby: Patronizing professor needs a lesson in social graces | Philadelphia Daily News | 01/20/2010 (http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/dear_abby/20100120_Dear_Abby__Patronizing_professor_needs_a_ lesson_in_social_graces.html - broken link)
a person can be patronizing in tone and still not use them 'big' words. people do it all the time.
Now days, this is not the case. Grading assignments has become yet another "feel good" project for American education; an opportunity to "build self esteem" at the cost of true education.
I was in high school not too long ago, and they did, in fact, base a fair chunk of your grade for essays around grammar.
I have a question, if anyone at all can answer it for me. Why is it so hard for so many people to decide when to use 'you're, your', 'we're, were', and 'there, they're and their'? Really? Is it that difficult? It infuriates me to no end- I could understand if English wasn't your first language, but they start drilling this stuff in beginning in elementary school...yet, people, professional adults, can't get it right. Can someone explain why this is?
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Don't blame it on English being a difficult language. The bottom line is that one should not be able to get out of middle school without being able to spell and punctuate and use correct grammar. Schools should stop wasting time teaching students so much garbage that they will never use and instead focus on topics such as this and fixing a car and personal finance. When people do not write correctly, they look like morons and cannot expect to be respected, unless of course English is not the person's first language. I fail to understand why it is so difficult these days to comprehend that you have one apple and to create more than one apple you just add an s!!! Why are apostrophes appearing everywhere? In what grade did you learn one, two, three, four, five? First grade? Then why is it people do not know two is a number--not too or to? I could go on and on but teachers need to be strict about this and insist their students express themselves correctly, or they do not move on to the next grade.
Very cool. I wish there were more instructional resources for Scots. I've found some good ones, but they are a bit rare. I work with a woman whose native childhood language is Gaelic and is fairly familiar with Scots also. I love to hear her talk!
Sorry for the thread hijack everyone... but finding anyone to speak with about Scots or Gaelic is kinda rare! Seize the moment!
There are quite a few good websites and I've got a huge dictionary, but my hub says a lot of the words in it are no longer in use. There were some even he'd never heard of.
If you're in the UK forum we could discuss further there.
I don't know. Why don't you tell us? After all, you routinely use the word "ain't" in your posts, and I see at least two glaring grammatical errors in the post above.
Thanks for your post. Lately. I used 'ain't' in a post (the politics forum), but it was intentional. Otherwise I don't write that word. I'm interested in improvement, so let me know of my mistakes.
It is true that English is one of very, very few languages in the world that is not almost perfectly phonetic. English speakers have to learn to spell every word, individually, and that is not a hurdle that other people have to get over. Even French is much more phonetic than English, although the rules are pretty complicated. Much of the misuse of English (not all of it) arises from the fact that there is no natural correlation between spelling and pronunciation, and English is almost unique in that respect.
(Pronounce "kauphy". Now pronounce "coffee". There is not a single letter that occurs in both words.
Pronounce "ghoti", with 'gh' as in 'enough, 'o' as in 'women', 'ti' as in 'nation'. "Fish".)
But that doesn't explain bad grammar. Every language in the world requires agreement of subject and verb, for example, but English speakers regularly violate that, which is intolerable in other languages, and never heard even among small children.
In my opinion, it should be the hard policy in every school that no student is ever permitted to speak or write a statement that is grammatically incorrect, and is to be corrected every time it happens. The problem is our school's tolerance for street language in the classroom.
Don't blame it on English being a difficult language. The bottom line is that one should not be able to get out of middle school without being able to spell and punctuate and use correct grammar. Schools should stop wasting time teaching students so much garbage that they will never use and instead focus on topics such as this and fixing a car and personal finance. When people do not write correctly, they look like morons and cannot expect to be respected, unless of course English is not the person's first language. I fail to understand why it is so difficult these days to comprehend that you have one apple and to create more than one apple you just add an s!!! Why are apostrophes appearing everywhere? In what grade did you learn one, two, three, four, five? First grade? Then why is it people do not know two is a number--not too or to? I could go on and on but teachers need to be strict about this and insist their students express themselves correctly, or they do not move on to the next grade.
2 is a number. "Two" is the word we call that number.
2 is a number. "Two" is the word we call that number.
You can't start a sentence with a numeral. That's a rule of English writing, which you just broke. "Two" and "2" are different ways of writing the same word, and it is disallowed to use the numeral at the beginning of a sentence. By the way, "2" and "two" are both numbers, but "2" is a numeral.
nu·mer·al
n.
1. A symbol or mark used to represent a number.
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