It’s time for an intervention, geek friends.
And despite the title, this post has nothing to do with people who speak English as their second language. My hats are off to the folks who are working on being more fluent in a second tongue; it’s not easy.
No, this post was inspired by a conversation I had with a single guy via IMs.
His first language was English and he claimed to be a writer with decades of experience. The problem? He was butchering words left and right and all I could think about was this scene from Family Guy:
Stewie: Brian this is painful. Like listening to those 2 foreign guys down at the coffee shop who’ve been living in the US almost long enough to sound American.
{Cut to coffee shop}
Guy #1: Oh man, what a good bunch of partying at that discotech. They played one of my audience requests.
Guy #2: Way awesome! I myself drank like 5 liters of beer, any more and I would have ended up in hospital, man.
Guy #1: Oh, you said it, friend – but I wanted to stay ’cause I almost had sex on this girl.
Guy #2: Oh yeah, but it was so expensive, each drink was like 6 dollars 40.
It was clear that he was trying to impress me with his huge throbbing vocabulary, but the words he chose were so wrong, so forced. If this was his casual chat, can you imagine what his online dating profile must be like? Think of what he’d write if he had time to obsess over each individual word.
Sadly, this problem is more common than you might realize.
It’s great if you have a big vocabulary. Like many geek girls, I find that kind of thing sexy. I once replied to an otherwise iffy dating profile (with no photo and very little details) because the guy used the line: “Don’t be vapid. Know what vapid means.” And yeah, we ended up dating for one very hot summer.
One clever word is all you need to get the geek girls swooning. One.
If your profile is so full of ten dollar words that we have to read each sentence five times to make any sense of it, we’re not going to think you’re a literary genius. We’re going to turn tail and find another guy.
About e
This advice is really hard to follow. Or, rather, it’s the kind of advice that will be ignored or misunderstood by the people who need most to hear it. Which is sad because, yeah, misusing “big” words is terrible.
Really, I think the correct number of “10 dollar words” to use in casual conversation is zero. If you’re impressed by a word, it’s not really in your speaking vocabulary (which includes IMs and email, but might not include dating profiles?), so leave it for an essay or something. The reason is that if you’re impressed by a word, chances are you don’t have enough experience with it to actually understand the full meaning including whatever subtleties it includes which make it not ACTUALLY a synonym for “without” (or whatever).
In the interest of full disclosure: I frequently use words in casual speech that others apparently consider “10 dollar words”. My only defense is that I’m stunned when someone doesn’t know what they mean. So, kettle, you’re looking mighty atramentous today.
.-= Ben´s last blog ..Killing PCs =-.
Not quite the same, but related: last week I spotted a profile where a guy, who was clearly trying to impress readers with his vocabulary, spoke of going to a “pulsating” club. No man – no person – should ever use the word “pulsating” in their dating profile. Even if it’s accurate.
J – was it a pulsating, THROBBING club?
Ben – You’re right about this advice being ignored by the folks who need it most. But that’s true about a lot of other types of advice. There are always going to be people who think they know better. We can tell them otherwise, but they want to fall on their face a few times before admitting they’re doing it wrong. We’re here to help them when they come to that realization.
Why do guys feel they need to use big words to impress someone? It honestly isn’t the exact words you are saying, but what you are talking about in general. It’s almost sad. In many cases it just makes you look weird or stupid. On the other hand though, you can tell when someone is genuinely smart and uses those types of words in an everyday conversation. But for those who have no clue, stop using your Thesaurus! I also really like the Family Guy example haha!
One of my old college buddies left the following comment on a thread while arguing with someone:
“Your obnubilation could not be any more plain. I am an impavid warrior of the ultrafidian variety. Your nescient approach will quickly leave you quisquous.”
Honestly, no idea what it means. I haven’t bothered to look up the words yet.
.-= Matt Neagley´s last blog ..Happy GM’s Day from the Gnomes! =-.
What about those of us who just … use big words? In conversation, I don’t drop words like “savory,” “anima,” and “limerant” because I’m trying to impress, I use them because I know what they mean and they’re the best words for the job. What should we do?
I have to agree that I a great mind is a complete turn on, but if a guy is trying to hard, it often feels like he is trying to prove he is smarter than I am. Which I am sure most geek girls out there will agree is a turn OFF!
Personally I would find a good inside reference much more fun than a bunch of $10 words.
Sometimes it’s unconscious. I use bloody as a reflexive curse all the time, despite not even being the slightest bit British. I’ll get weird looks if I stub my toe or something and my friends/co-workers will be like “Did you just say bloody?”
I imagine it’s the same way for people who unconsciously drop ten dollar words all over the place..
Is reflexive a ten dollar word?
I agree, vocabulary can enrich many things, but too often it just clutters up a conversation.
Hehe, vapid is such fun word. Always stirs up images in my head of someone staring into a Vacuous Grimoire.
Roscoe – The thing to remember is that an online dating profile is essentially an advertisement. It’s copywriting, not literature. You want to write in a way that touches your audience emotionally in as concise a way as possible. If you can do that with lots of ten dollar words, great. But most people can’t. And when you can’t – you lose out on the connection.
I suppose you have a point there. Now off to give my own online profile a stern look.
.-= Roscoe´s last blog ..Red Penny Monday: A Matchmaker for Kwan Yin =-.