The Demise of English? (A Call to Arms!)

[iansales]

Clearly, none of you lot have read Anthony Burgess :-)

Synergy is business-speak these days, and used a lot. I've never heard syzygy used in conversation though.

[scalem X]

Ian, I have.
I read A Clockwork Orange. Real horrorshow novel, all you vecks and devotchka's should go out and read it. You'll viddy the world through a whole different perspective.

[chrispenycate]

But that is invented language though I do feel his talent for developing synthetic, internally consistent languages was best demonstrated in Jean.Jaques Annaud's "La Guerre du Feu" (the quest for fire, apparently), where he invented two, mutually incompatible.
Still, it's sapiens to be homo – The wanting seed?
The wild ass I already knew, along with its artillery connections, but the "fiacre" I mixed up, after a bureau of automobiles in Paris (mentioned in a "Maigret" where Saint Fiacre was the blason above the door…
It's the things you think you know, but are wrong about, that trip you up, not the total unknown.

[Connavar]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

I certainly would, although probably not if I was talking about the weather.

And I think we probably have different definitions for "conversation" and "specialized vocabulary." Under conversation I include the discussions we have here. (So, now that I think of it, you have used the word virgule in conversation.)

And look at someone like Chris: If he knows a word, he just uses it. His active vocabulary and his passive vocabulary are practically identical. It was the same for me at one time. Then I started working in retail, which is something of a melting pot in terms of education and background, and found out how many reasonably intelligent adults hadn't a clue to what I was talking about a lot of the time. Since I didn't want them to think I was showing off (also, I grew weary of explaining myself), I simplified my vocabulary. Now I think it was a bad idea; I should have just been myself, and they could like me or not, just as they chose.

I suppose my point is, writers should be themselves, too -- but they should be their most articulate and eloquent selves.

I agree with that.

I still enjoy it when a good author uses words that arent usual cause then you learn new words even if you will never use it in a conseravation.
Specially since i use 0% english offline.
Also its always much more fun to see words you didnt know of used well in a sentence.


Have you read Jack Vance ? I found his books to be full of strange words to me atleast like the word you mentioned for the monkey. Having read him enough and checked up what the words mean now i can read him perfectly without a dictionary.


I will take that over an author who triest dumb it down with too simple words for readers like the ones you mentioned.


Specially in SF where its usually about strange worlds and concepts you cant use slang or simple english. I want refined english then.


I didnt have much respect or use for english really before i started reading so much. I didnt need english other than for school really.
Then with great writers i saw the quality of it used well.

[Lena]

Though you are speaking about the English language and the reader, who speaks English as a native (?) I want to bring up another point which comes to my mind when I read through your discussion.
I learned English and French at school and (at that time) reading books in foreign languages seemed to be very difficult – the books were even encoded. It was (and is) really frustrating not to understand what the author wants to tell you. But than I accepted that it is impossible to look up every second word in a dictionary and today I like English books. (Yes, I'm a fan of English/American Fantasy novels)
Now I can live with the unfamiliar words because I fill these gaps with the meaning that is given in the context.
Therefore I don't complain about unknown words in my own language – they are not even half as much as the unknown words in English and French.

(But maybe I don't complain about long or strange words, because I'm German and the German language is full of words with more than one syllable.)

Teresa, I read some of your books (in English of course) and could understand them very well even though I didn't get every word.
If an author is able to deal with the own language he/she can get the issue across to the reader without diminishing or 'mutilating' the vocabulary.

I hope, this wasn't out of topic but I felt I had to note it.