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"The unbeaten sagacious astuteness of #Varanasi is no less than a figurine of rectitude for the people #ReasonsToUP" runs the full Tweet, now deleted, that
"Verbose tweet inspires linguistic laughter from Indians" says has brought down mockery on the Indian tourist authority responsible for its pretentious misuse of correct English words from a dictionary or thesaurus (2016).
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My Yes/No question is:
Is a thesaurus dangerous?
My answer is:
Yes, it can be, but it's a useful tool when used correctly.
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| Reckless repair to a dictionary |
Oddly, some of the very witty replies to the offending Tweet by a government official, or group thereof, who need some lessons in how to effectively use a thesaurus and dictionary themselves use words that are as uncommon in everyday English as those in the weird Tweet. The difference is that the writers of the mocking replies plainly know the meanings of the words that they are using and deploy them to great effect. The official Tweet merely looks like someone wrote something sensible and turned it into nonsense by replacing the words one by one with synonyms from a list, choosing the most formal or impressive sounding for each. This is a dangerous way to use a language tool such as a dictionary.
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| This writer knew what he was doing |
As we have seen in class, dictionaries are very useful tools, and I use them regularly when reading and writing. What I don't do is use words I don't know in my writing. Academic English does use a much larger vocabulary than the non-academic versions; the literary vocabulary of English is larger still, but the safest way not to sound weird (not a good thing in an exam) is to use words with which we are familiar.
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Another competent response to
the official weirdness |
I think our response writing here helps that. What do you think?
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Verbose tweet inspires linguistic laughter from Indians. (2016, August 14). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-37050651
There were a few other stories in the news that caught my eye over morning coffee the last couple of days, including "North Carolina man freed after 28 years in prison" (2016, August 12) and the rotten elements in French rule of law being upheld by the courts in "Nice court upholds burkinis ban, but appeal planned" (2016, August 13). But we can't blog everything. That would detract from the relaxed joys of the essential daily drug hits.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't end up blogging most of them, I often email myself links to interesting news articles that I might come back to later.
DeleteI used to have this problem, but it was a little different. I was preparing for the old SAT exam and the test was known for its ridiculously difficult vocabulary. It forced students to memorize the words that they probably will never use. But there was nobody I can complain to. My only option was to memorize them all. I bought a book from Barron's called Hot words for the SAT. It was useful for the exam, but it ruined my writing experience. The book is a collection of words that often show up in the test along with its short definition. The words were catagorized into sections with similar meaning. This caused problems when I was writing essay because when I tried to think of synonyms, I often think of words in the book. They are difficult words with very specific meaning that most of the time cannot be replace by other words. For instance, in the first chapter, the words succinct and taciturn are put in the same section called "quiet". They give similar ideas, but totally different meaning. Succinct means clear and concise while taciturn mean uncommunicative. I don't blame the book; it really helped me with the test. However, we must remember that we shouldn't depend on it too much.
ReplyDeleteMy answer is No. It's not dangerous!
ReplyDeleteThesaurus is just a tool. If the person who uses it doesn't really know how to use it, it he becomes to get a problem or makes others to be in troublesome from it. It's like a sword that can be both good or bad depending on how it is to be used.
If you look at some dubbed translation from English to Thai in some western movies in the theater, you will be sometimes amazed with the insane direct translation.
In my university time, I met one person who studied in the faculty of arts who tried to act smart. He often used big words in English. I do not see the necessity in such an endeavor. In fact, I think the best way to communicate is to make another party to understand what we convey with a precise and concise word form.
For me, I prefer to use the word that I understand. However, In order to learn the new word/vocabulary, I have to use it but I really need to understand how to fit it in the right content and part of speech. The best way to learn any language is to use it correctly.
ReplyDeleteSo how do we learn new vocabulary? What can we do?
Delete