I am always tempted. Like some of the writers in these Forums... I have developed a debatable habit.
That of fetching obscure nouns and adjectives from the dustiest dictionaries on the bookshelf!
While I cannot deny that indulging in the practice satisfies my intellect; when I do, I do wonder if actual ideas are being conveyed.
The English language is potentially the most evocative on the planet.
But if my targeted readers just scroll past for lack of a hand-held thesaurus...what's the point?
Originally posted by @wolfe63 I am always tempted. Like some of the writers in these Forums... I have developed a debatable habit.
That of fetching obscure nouns and adjectives from the dustiest dictionaries on the bookshelf!
While I cannot deny that indulging in the practice satisfies my intellect; when I do, I do wonder if actual ideas are being conveyed.
The English languag ...[text shortened]... ut if my targeted readers just scroll past for lack of a hand-held thesaurus...what's the point?
Fear not sir, some of us always have a hand-held thesaurus upon our personage.
Originally posted by @wolfe63 I am always tempted. Like some of the writers in these Forums... I have developed a debatable habit.
That of fetching obscure nouns and adjectives from the dustiest dictionaries on the bookshelf!
While I cannot deny that indulging in the practice satisfies my intellect; when I do, I do wonder if actual ideas are being conveyed.
The English languag ...[text shortened]... ut if my targeted readers just scroll past for lack of a hand-held thesaurus...what's the point?
Originally posted by @wolfe63 I am always tempted. Like some of the writers in these Forums... I have developed a debatable habit.
That of fetching obscure nouns and adjectives from the dustiest dictionaries on the bookshelf!
While I cannot deny that indulging in the practice satisfies my intellect; when I do, I do wonder if actual ideas are being conveyed.
The English languag ...[text shortened]... ut if my targeted readers just scroll past for lack of a hand-held thesaurus...what's the point?
The English language really doesn't make any sense at times, my favourite is live and live, how can two words which pronounced differently and mean different things be spelt the same?
Originally posted by @trev33 The English language really doesn't make any sense at times, my favourite is live and live, how can two words which pronounced differently and mean different things be spelt the same?
Originally posted by @trev33 The English language really doesn't make any sense at times, my favourite is live and live, how can two words which pronounced differently and mean different things be spelt the same?
What about the oarsman and his wife who were rowing about who should do the rowing?
Not quite on topic perhaps, but I wonder why - as in thread Last Word Sentences - it is often easier to make a new word starting at the end of the last word rather than the beginning?
Originally posted by @trev33 Tell that to someone learning the language, we're brought up with it and similar things but it makes it overly complicated for them.
It does, many things in English do. English grammar gets more complicated when you get into the language. It seems easy at first. When I studied English at school, we learned that it has few rules but many exceptions to them. You have to learn them by and by.
There are many anomalies in the dear old English language, and I have made so bold as to compose a limerick concerning one of them, so with your permission;
If a womb is the place we begin it
And a tomb we put dead people in it
Then a comb should be coomb
And a bomb should go boom
It' a funny old language though, innit.
Vocabulary vs. Comprehensive Substance
14 Feb '18 11:46
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