My word of the day is “apposite”.

“highly pertinent or appropriate”

Now, after looking it up I can see it likely stems from “apt” but I didn’t know that till I cheated.

I’m sure it’s known by most on here but not by me.

Reminds me of when I started reading books by choice rather than being “forced” to for education purposes. I kept a dictionary close at hand as I hated not knowing the meaning of a word. Wish I was so diligent at School.😉

Posted 4 months ago

Reminds me of when I started reading books by choice rather than being “forced” to for education purposes.

Did you find that you mispronounced all the words you didn’t hear at home or school though? I did. It’s a sure sign that you’ve learned from self led reading, not expensive schooling. Even with modern tech to hand to help, I still get friends from more privileged backgrounds laughing at my attempts. Teaching kids language skills early (ancient and modern) pays off big time when it comes to using our own mongrel of a language.

Posted 4 months ago

I am constantly checking the meaning of words before posting. I’m just grateful that I don’t need to know how to pronounce them.

Posted 4 months ago

grateful that I don’t need to know how to pronounce them

Amen brother!

Posted 4 months ago

I recently bought a new thesaurus but all the pages are blank. Not only is it terrible but its also terrible.

Posted 4 months ago

Surely you mean expanding your lexicon?

Posted 4 months ago

Not only is it terrible but its also terrible.

> insert best emoji for a groan here <

Posted 4 months ago

No.

Posted 4 months ago

kelvin

Did you find that you mispronounced all the words you didn’t hear at home or school though?

Hello teach.

Yes indeed and I still find myself second guessing.

I’m still not confident in saying “hyperbole” in the wild for fear of stumbling over the last part of the word due to overthinking it.

Posted 4 months ago

Riksbar
Full Member
Surely you mean expanding your lexicon?

God damn it,I knew I could have used a better word!

Posted 4 months ago

I’m still not confident in saying “hyperbole”

I said “I did”, I should have said “I do”. If we’d had Greek/Latin drummed into us we wouldn’t think twice about it. Perhaps.

Posted 4 months ago

Lords sake, don’t get us into grammar.

I’d be terrified to post anything on here.

(I’m willing to bet I’ve made one error at least in the above. Possibly more in this bracketed comment too.)

Posted 4 months ago

As a crayon-based colourer-inner I’m semi-literate. There’s only one dictionary I need…

Posted 4 months ago

I’d say so, for sure.

Every day is a school day as they say. Typos are typos but it’s always interesting to see big words like ‘Audi’ and ’29er’.

Posted 4 months ago

Yup, STW is my only contact with street English. My wife keeps up with the Guardian and I’m always one step ahead with the latest buzz words and expressions thanks to STW. However some of it I’m happy to remain ignorant about, for example:

To add, get rid of any QnapCloud accounts and disable UPnP on your NAS

The first place I saw ‘Brexit’ was STW.

Posted 4 months ago

Yes, its perfectly cromulent to embiggen your lexicon

Posted 4 months ago

Yes, I find it really really, really, really really

really

good.

(Homer Simpson, c. 1995)

Posted 4 months ago

Not only is it terrible but its also terrible.

Chateau!

Posted 4 months ago

Most of the best words are **** out….

Posted 4 months ago

Posted 4 months ago

Yes but – there is a fine line between expanding the lexicon, and being able to write and communicate in general in plain english. It’s something I’m very careful to do at work in particular; I have an extremely well educated workforce but many do not have English as a first language.

I think people like to use complex language as a means of demonstrating ‘intelligence’ and it’s not the same thing; in fact if your language prevents you being understood you’re not using your intelligence to impart knowledge.

There’s a few posters on here who do this and I can’t be bothered to read their posts with a dictionary next to me, so I miss their points entirely. Talk to your audience, get your point across.

Posted 4 months ago

We tried to sneak a book of synonyms past the librarian but they saw us.

Posted 4 months ago

I think people like to use complex language as a means of demonstrating ‘intelligence’ and it’s not the same thing;

Take note, prime minister

Posted 4 months ago

…being able to write and communicate in general in plain english. It’s something I’m very careful to do at work in particular; I have an extremely well educated workforce but many do not have English as a first language.

My wife proof reads papers for non English speakers and they occasionally use words that she has to look up. It often turns out it is the perfect word to describe the thing or situation but no native English speaker would use it.

Posted 4 months ago

Most people I work with have PhD’s these days, every flipping day is a school day, most recent example ‘sysphian’. Favourite prior to that was axiomatically, or orthogonal.

Posted 4 months ago

*Sisyphean

(Sorry).

Posted 4 months ago

I think people like to use complex language as a means of demonstrating ‘intelligence’ and it’s not the same thing;

Take note, prime minister

Of all the things he guilty of that’s not one. He doesn’t use archaic, abstruse language to look intelligent, he does it precisely because it obfuscates.

Posted 4 months ago

*Sisyphean

(Sorry).

No need to be, I heard it, looked it up, but didn’t commit the spelling to memory completely as I’m not sure I’d ever use it personally 🙂

Posted 4 months ago