Mercy, rogerbox, you’re still sulking about that abbreviations thread?
All groups of people like to use “in-group” slang and jargon, whether it’s the slang of bizarre acronyms or the slang of foreign phrases. And all groups of people having conversations encounter “gray areas” between slang and standard common knowledge. One person’s la-di-da faux-scholarly jargon is another person’s generally-understood ordinary vocabulary.
I really don’t understand the continuing resentment against occasional users of specialized slang in the context of modern internet-based electronic discussions. It made more sense back in the pre-google days when being confronted with an unfamiliar acronym or foreign phrase meant that you either had to interrupt the conversation and possibly look a bit clueless by directly asking “excuse me, what does that mean?” or else undertake the sometimes substantial chore of finding the appropriate reference work in which to look it up.
But now that anybody participating in a messageboard thread can easily find out in about fifteen seconds what is meant by an expression like “ave atque vale” or “TANSTAAFL”, why waste time and energy being annoyed at people who occasionally use such expressions?
ISTM (sorry, “It seems to me”) that the resentment springs from a dislike of feeling ignorant and a consequent assumption that anybody whose language use has the result of making you feel ignorant must be deliberately trying to put you down and make you feel inferior. I have to agree with the OP that this reaction may say more about you than about them.
Feeling ignorant is ultimately a good thing, IMO: it gives us a more realistic view of the extent of the universe of knowledge and spurs us to find things out. Conversation would get pretty boring if everybody who talked to us was always watching their language for fear of saying something that we might not understand immediately.
De temps en temps I found myself lost vis-à-vis comprehension of some phrase in a language of which I know bupkis, so I underwent great effort toward increasing my level of Verstehen of such things. But the lingua franca — the lingua franca — of mein interactions — comincia a confondere me beaucoup — すべてがごちゃ混ぜにされてい — táim mearbhall, frightened, help me, aidez-moi, no one can understand me plus long temps, ha nåd, salvare me
I think we would all agree that someone who uses a word, phrase, or abbreviation he or she knows no one will understand is being a jerk. That’s not the issue under discussion. For better or for worse, Latin and French have penetrated the language so deeply that it’s hard to draw the boundaries between them sometimes, as noted by Kimstu. Hundreds of English words are taken directly from Latin, and it cannot be considered pretentious to use a word like “consider.”
I think placing the burden on those with extra knowledge to tone it down is just anti-intellectualism. The burden should be on the ignorant to learn, and there’s no shame in not knowing something (yet). There is, however, a real shame in refusing to learn something because you feel insecure.
Nitpick: that means “I am confusion”. “Tá mearbhall orm” means “I’m confused.” I think “I am confusing” would be “Tá mé ag deanamh mearbhall”, but I’m not sure.
(And Google Translate says the Japanese is “Not all been jumbled,” but I’m prepared to believe that the flaw lies with Google on that one.)
You can’t, I’m guessing that most people doing it aren’t academics even though the board likely skews academic more than say, youtube comments.
If it isn’t ENGLISH, then no the burden is not on the ignorant to learn, because it is impossible for everyone to learn every language. The person communicating the idea has the burden on themselves to be understood, and speaking in non-common latin that is not part of common english useage is not reasonable. Unless you think latin is privleged? If I post in Swahili if you roll your eyes you are an “anti-intellectual”?
A real scholar shares their knowledge with enthusiasm and doesn’t think less of you if you don’t know it. The faux-hole uses that knowledge to make themselves look impressive and thinks you are less of a human if you don’t know what they did.
Its the academic difference between a good samiratin accidentaly killing someone and 1st degree murder.
Sniff for the faint smell of smug.
Yeah, something is spelled wrong in here somewhere. I don’t give a fuck.
I see. So real scholars are therefore obliged to dissemble so as not to offend your delicate sensibilities. That seems a little unfair.
But are really obscure words that are IN ENGLISH ok? Or do we have to restrict ourselves to using only words that we expect the lowest common denominator will know?
So it is not reasonable to expect people to be able to figure things out in context?
It’s not so simple. A short phrase in Swahili might be a real bon mot. The meaning of the phrase should be fairly evident from the context. It also needs to add some layer of meaning to the discussion that the equivalent phrase in English wouldn’t. The phrase must be relatively harmless to those who don’t get the reference and valuable to those who do. It is pretty easy to figure out that ave atque vale means “hail and farewell,” but for those who know Catullus 101, the phrase adds a lot more texture.
If you don’t know what the phrase refers to, it’s in really bad faith to assume that the person who used it is just doing it to be smug.
Think of a guy being overly impressive with French accents, as he’s reviewing the wine list. Clearly he is very smart about wine, that’s not a bad thing, or anything to be ashamed of. No one is saying he should ‘dumb down’ his intellect. He’s not committing a crime and no one’s suggesting hanging him.
When you encounter this fellow, as respectful of knowledge and eager to learn as you may well be, it’s hard not to reflect that for so smart and evolved an intellect he can’t even sense the way it makes others perceive him.
And it’s hard for that blindness to not imply, on some level, that he doesn’t give a whit because he’s that secure, he’s smarter than all you. And that always smells like smug.
Really smart people don’t do that. They are more interested in connecting and clarity.
Anyway it was just an observation, and an opinion, not intended as biting condemnation.
I have underlined the words in your post that come either from or through Latin (in many cases via French). At some point in the language’s history, these words were NOT ENGLISH. If people can’t use words that are not English, the language will never grow. Obviously there should be a balance, but equally obviously this has been a useful and productive interlinguistic relationship for well over a thousand years, and your whining won’t stop it.
Maybe there is just something between the lines here that I am not seeing. I can see rolling your eyes at someone who makes a point of trying to pronounce all of the words on the wine list just so when he doesn’t actually know French. I can see the problem if this person intentionally belittles other people if they don’t know one wine from another. I can even see the problem of overdoing it a bit even when you do know French just to make sure everyone knows you know.
But now you are saying that somehow even if you do know the language and even if you aren’t trying to bludgeon others with it, you need to intentionally mispronounce the damned wine list because otherwise it interferes with clarity and connection?
That’s madness.
Listen, I hear what you are saying. I just got home from teaching my undergrads and I really messed up today. I overestimated how much core knowledge they had and ended up confusing the hell out of them. I struggled to make a connection, to impart my enthusiasm for the subject, and to be as clear as possible. I seriously doubt this was the impression they got. This wasn’t because my attempt was not in good faith or, worse, was completely motivated by intellectual vanity. Making that connection is not easy.
I’ll drop something arcane but hopefully meaningful into a conversation precisely because I am trying to make a connection. Evidently I just don’t succeed very often. Smugness is not the only possible motivation.
Maybe. Everything I know about Swahili comes from playing Quest For Glory 3. I actually did go to Kenya when I was a kid. I got to use “habari bwana” quite a lot.
