What to do with spare $75,000

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
my use of words remains on somewhat of a level that the people one is conversing with can understand

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That method of conversing was taught in the police academy way back when I was a rookie. And the guy I considered the best English professor in college said it's usually best to "write" like the Reader's Digest; 9th grade level. Talking and writing in that manner provides the best chance of there being no misunderstanding.

[Pat]

DU-UH, like yeah... and you could like save a lot of money printing dictionaries too. If your dictionary has only about 200 words you could get pretty familiar with the contents.

The part of Reader's Digest I like to read first is the word power quiz and the jokes.

Where in deed do those "strange" words come from? I think they are all in the smallest commonly published dictionary. I am willing to bet they have all been used in the pages of Reader's Digest within the last year.

The US Navy has standards to which training materials are written. Over time, they are consistently being lowered to target the deteriorating verbal skills of the students. You might be surprised to see hom much training is produced in comic book form or at the 6th grade level so as not to "shoot over the heads" of too many students. This is not a good thing. Not a point of pride. Much of the rest of the world values an educaton much more highly than many in the US.

Of course it is good to communicate at the level of the audience but note, there is as of yet no civil or criminal code prohibiting the use of polysylabic communications.

Now lets form a circle with our horns to the outside for mutual protection of our linguistic backsides.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[DUMBDOG]

Somewhere in the last couple of years, read somewhere where the amount of word usage in the everyday lanquage of the American public has gone down considerably. We now use about one half of the words that were used in 1900.

[mysticokra]

Egregious is a great word. Now if he had called it arrant, flagitious or odius then we would all scramble for the dictionary.

You can have great fun with these words by using them in an argument and watching the other guy struggle for comprehension, but not admit he hasn't a clue what you just said. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
You can have great fun with these words by using them in an argument and watching the other guy struggle for comprehension, but not admit he hasn't a clue what you just said

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And what's even more comical is when you hear someone using words to try to impress folks, and you know he's using the wrong words. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
odius

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Uh . . ., by the way, did you mean "odious"? [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[LazyJ_Arabians]

I think he just called me a stinky old fart.