Vocabulary in today's youth

[Labyrinth]

Eloquence has nothing to do with inteligence.

I don't consider that entirely true. As I agree with the theory of multiple intelligences, I'd say that it helps along one particular facet of human intellect, and interrelates with many others. There's no way to exclusively say that one thing only helps one other.

While I do agree with you regarding multiple inteligences it still doesnt mean that a well spoken person is a good communicator. Eloquence can be usefull when communicating with certain people or masking insecurity in oneself, but it reflects knowledge and not inteligence.

If Fyodor Dovstoevsky suddenly showed up in the US one day with no more then a beginners course in English he wouldn't sound very smart would he?

The language barrier represents a different problem. My hissy fit is with people for whom English is first language, and their abuse thereof. The bastards.

 

[flatearth]

This reminded me of a skecth in the Kelsey Grammer's Sketch Show.

This is snippet from inside the skecth, where a group of people are talking about their problems with the English language

Woman: It's all right with you guys, I have a very small vocabulary

Man: Oh, and how's that working out for you

Woman: It's all right with you guys, I have a very small vocabulary

 

[Billy_Pilgrim]

While I have an above average vocabulary for my age and setting I don't try to be snobbish about it. Just because I know long words doesn't make me smarter or "better", it just reflects the amount of advanced reading I do.

Eloquence has nothing to do with inteligence.

Thank you very much. I can't believe the ego stroking I?m seeing in this thread. Overt pretentiousness aside, do you really think that the quality of your writing is defined by the number of awkward buzz words you can force into it? Nonsense. Good writing depends on restraint, refinement and subtlety. Not to mention the willingness to challenge our preconceived notions of what is (and isn?t) a good piece of writing. Without the readiness to bend and break the rules, we?d never have heard of people like Shakespeare or Cortázar.

 

[Noamuth]

I live in australia and it's pretty bad here, most teenagers are half illiterate, it's really bad when we have to read in class and someone doesn't know what reform means.

Most people don't like reading and speaking in a more sophisticated (see literate) way as it is "un cool" to read, it's like board RPGs it's considered something only for the nerdy and adults, sucks but it's inevitable, people are getting stupider.

Trust me kids, this is not a new problem. I'm actually heartened to see how many of you lot are getting irritated about having to dumb down your speech patterns for the benefit of those less intelligent than yourselves. I've got the distinct impression that there are more of you now than there used to be.

Just keep on speaking the way you want to speak. Use the words you want to use. If others are too lazy to use what they've got between their ears, fuck 'em. The ones worth talking to will catch up.

Those.

That being said, I tend to swear too much and shorten words a lot. >.>

 

[Atvomat_Nikonov]

I hear alot of idiots talk poor english. It annoys me slightly, but due to force of habit I tend to copycat how some other people speak. For example, I use alot of slang because I hear it alot and it is basically been burned into my vocabulary. Although fortunately for me I have alot of intelligent friends, who counter-balance how I speak by saying things like 'I concur' instead of I agree and there vocabulary merges with mine. I also use alot of words I don't hear at all such as 'Pseudo'.

 

[Sarctastic]

Yes. I have noticed this at my school as well.
It's worrying when a teacher asks the meaning of a word(to see if anyone already knows what it mean, the teachers aren't daft themselves) and I'm the only person who knows. I think speaking to the people in my school has actually made my normal vocabulary worse as I rarely ever use long words as most of the people I talk to will not understand me.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

I once contributed to this utter disgrace of the English language during my wigger phase (something I shall never live down) Ironically what turned the tide so to speak was when I became hooked on Dawson's Creek; couple that with an increased interest in writing and my vocabulary has expending phenomenally since back then. Another joy I came to realize was I could use this for my own amusement by using words in debates/arguments that people I know cannot even begin to fathom. Never will forget when I first tried that on my cousin, she could barely keep up and she is 23 years my senior.

Tis a real shame people do not seem to realize the benefits of a large vocabulary.

 

[Toasty]

I am just so elated to find a forum in which 'lol' cannot be found.
-impressed!

-my vocabulary seems to be wider than a lot of people's at my school, although admittedly my spelling can be absolutely horrendous.

-And the intelligence level of some girls in school is shocking......last year one of my freinds asked me 'how many suns there where in the sky? cause hows the other side of the world lit up?' -I was gobsmacked.

 

[Labyrinth]

LOL!!!o11oneoenoe

lyke omg u r so stoopd. how can u tipe lyke dat it takes soooooo long

boring

..And now I have a headache.

 

[Noamuth]

As silly as it sounds, finding 'ye olde' words to throw at someone is surprisingly entertaining.

 

[Labyrinth]

I get great hilarity out of using Shakespearean language to insult. And biting my thumb at people I don't like. Some take it entirely the wrong way, which is even more amusing.

 

[Noamuth]

I get great hilarity out of using Shakespearean language to insult. And biting my thumb at people I don't like. Some take it entirely the wrong way, which is even more amusing.

XD

Good times.

 

[scarbunny]

I think intelligence in general is dropping, or at least people are intentionally dumbing themselves down to fit in. I had the misfortune of spending the evening with a pair of 18 year bimbos, now that may sound like fun to some, but when you are having to explain that Athens is not a ski resort similar to Aspen it takes the sheen away some how, especially considering the two girls in question where travel agents.

Also more focused on vocabulary my niece has started talking in Orwellian "newspeak", this wouldn’t be so bad if it was influenced by 1984 but she is 10 and hasn't even heard of Orwell. One example of this was over the weekend she had some ice cream, when asked how it was she replied "its double plus good" my initial reaction to this was almost hopeful so I inquired if she had enjoyed 1984, she gave me a blank look and asked me what I was talking about.

 

[poleboy]

As silly as it sounds, finding 'ye olde' words to throw at someone is surprisingly entertaining.

I think this is just as bad. Trying to confuse people with outdated words is not clever, it's just pretentious. The end goal of language should be communication, not grouping people based on the words they use.

 

[Labyrinth]

Ew. Bimbos. Please tell me they said hello to a shotgun barrel?

And I've seen Newspeak crop up in all sorts of unlikely places. It's odd, and vaguely worrying.

 

[jacodemon]

While I have an above average vocabulary for my age and setting I don't try to be snobbish about it. Just because I know long words doesn't make me smarter or "better", it just reflects the amount of advanced reading I do.

Eloquence has nothing to do with inteligence.

Thank you very much. I can't believe the ego stroking I?m seeing in this thread. Overt pretentiousness aside, do you really think that the quality of your writing is defined by the number of awkward buzz words you can force into it? Nonsense. Good writing depends on restraint, refinement and subtlety. Not to mention the willingness to challenge our preconceived notions of what is (and isn?t) a good piece of writing. Without the readiness to bend and break the rules, we?d never have heard of people like Shakespeare or Cortázar.

I had to register for these boards just to reply to this ace topic: after the issue of aptitude - some people are just plain stupid - it boils down to simple attitude, doesn't it?

I mean, I am a linguist by trade but I wasn't born with an innate knowledge of subtle, uncommon words that have empowered me to write terrible poetry - I've listened, learned, asked when I didn't understand, looked words up in dictionaries, used a thesaurus... and the culmination of all that is a kind of attritional growth in my vocabulary.

The sort of opposite of that is pig-headed, arrogant, boorishness like you get in groups of me-too kids who have yet to learn that behaviour of that sort will only earn them social kudos until the age of, what, fifteen, and only then from their equally insecure friends. After that the joke is over: shape up or it's manual labour for the next forty years.

 

[Iron Mal]

I have a rather large vocabulary (predomimantly accountable to my somewhat inquisitive disposition...couldn't resist) so I do often find myself having to dumb down what I'm saying to my friends and refrain from using 'long words' or scientific/latinate language (otherwise I useually end up recieving a glazed-over stare in response).

Sometimes this could be accountable to some people just being (lets not beat around the bush...bushes don't deserve to be beaten) legendarily retarded but then there are times I do have to start questioning schools (like quite a few people already have), I remember last year when I began college that the first thing we covered in english was very basic things like 'what is a verb/noun/adjective?'. I don't know if it was just me being some weird hyperintelligent humanoid-hybrid (or something) but I found it to be easy since I'd covered it a good 12 years prior back in primary school (while I saw some of my classmates struggling to understand that Green as in 'Green hat' is an adjective).

 

[scarbunny]

Ew. Bimbos. Please tell me they said hello to a shotgun barrel?

And I've seen Newspeak crop up in all sorts of unlikely places. It's odd, and vaguely worrying.

Unfortunately my shotgun was in my other coat so all I could manage was a barrage of intellectual wit, after which they cried and ran off to another pub.

As for Newspeak I wouldn’t mind it if it was used in an ironic fashion, as in by people how had read and understood 1984 and wanted to make some kind of point. However it seems that it is just evolving through the general retardation (and by retardation I mean the actual meaning, the slowing or holding back of something by an external force, not LULZ UR A RETARD!1!!!) of our youths intelligence

 

[Ares Tyr]

I've never used "text" speech (in IM, text messaging, and definetly not in real conversation), because I find it dangerously close to the shortened language found in George Orwell's "1984". Its dumbing down our society, and quickly. The moment people began saying "brb" and "omg" in actual conversation really frieghtened me (coincidentally, this happened around the same time shows like "The Hills" and "Laguna Beach" started to rise in popularity). I learned to type and all my current vocabulary in order to use it.

Now, I don't want to get this confused with slang, because slang is how new words are invented. Also being thoroughly involved in hip hop growing up, slang is something I naturally picked up on. So in normal conversation, I have this weird combination of highly refined vocabulary and slang words. Its not uncommon for me to say something along the lines of "Word, man. There Will Be Blood really captured the inner struggles of the main character well, I was compelled the whole time, yah mean?".

But also I think people should keep a good balance, I mean, without some lingo and regional speech, we lose our personalities and where we are from. But if we speak only in those terms, our speech becomes dull and dumbed down. So yeah. I think you are right, the whole current generation of ours is losing alot of the flair of decent vocabulary. Hell, when I was in middle school I was insulted for "trying to act smart" using words like ignorance and arrogant. So I know where you are coming from, and it is definetly not an isolated incident.

 

[insectoid]

I find that in my age group, people are constantly grating on my nerves when they use their 'language'.

However, on the flipside, there are also those people who intentionally try to confuse people by using big fancy words. They revel in the opportunity to somehow show their dominance over you because they know something which is really quite insignificant.

Still, when the people around you struggle to communicate the simplist of ideas, it is cause for worry...