People's vocabularies.
 

Over this last weekend, I've come across people who did not know what the words pithy or transgression meant. I understand this is kind of an condescending complaint, but I don't consider these tough words at all and these people in question are the kinds that I would expect better of.

What is the deal?

It IS a very condescending complaint. Those words are not used in everyday language often. Especially pithy.

What is the deal? Hate to be the bringer of the news but the deal is you! Smoke some pot and just relax dude.

I've never heard the word pithy in my life.

I hear the word trangression pretty often. I've only heard pithy a couple times in my entire life...

It means tersely cogent.

What a pithy.

How do you react when someone talks to you and uses one or several words that you don't know?

Curious.

I usually ask what the word means.

Personally, I jus' be usin' dem dere context clues!

If everyone were forced to read 19th century novels, there would be no vocabulary complaints.

I'll happily claim I have no fucking idea what either mean, but I'm still probably more intelligent than the lot of you.

\m/

I really don't consider vocabulary necessarily indicative of a person's level of intelligence. And smart idea can be expressed in fifteen or five words but will still be smart. A dumb idea in the same way will still be dumb.

But I really am surprised by what I consider high school level vocabulary.

I agree with you this far.

i don't remember anyone ever using pithy. but i come from florida, so that can be a reason why.

I've noticed over the past several months that my own vocabulary has slipped dramatically. Sometimes, I get annoyed when I settle with expressing myself as being very, totally this or that, when contextually I can tell that with more effort I probably could have come up with another way. Etc. I do loooove when I hear someone throw in a word Im not familiar with, though it usually takes me several attempts to actually cement it into my slow-ass brain.

I dont really judge others on something like this at all though.
Maybe linguistics is just not a major part of their communication. Maybe they just want to get the point accross - people can still connect thru that. People that are so simple as to measure their intelligence by comparing their vocab to others' are just plain dicks.

I really just get annoyed when people talk like they have never even tried to think before speaking, like when words are coming so fast out of some bitches mouths about cute pants cute dogs cute shoes that you cant help but drop words altogether and wish you just had a shotgun to ram down her throat instead.

I've never heard the word pithy before.

Transgression, plenty of times.

I've heard pithy in college, but not in the public's vocabulary. Transgression on the other hand, multiple times.

a) They simply haven't come across the word(s).

b) They have better things to do than to pay attention to useless synonyms.

c) Like me, they just pretend not to know words, so they can snicker to themselves at the speaker's frustration.

d) They are unintelligent.

e) It was probably a combination of a and b, but I felt like throwing in more because I'm putting off a pithy slice of homework pie.

i don't know either, are they American words?

I pithy the foo'

perhaps their line of work does not allow them to extend their vocab very often, and they have a distaste for dictionary browsing.

who knows.

new words excite me.

I seem to transform into a vertiginous gull upon gleaning a scattering of paltry idiom in which others seem none to vehement in tendering these days.

(Translation=I'm a sucker for useless synonyms and rarely-used adjectives.)

Heh. Woulda sworn that was Glice if I didn't look at yr name ;)

what about "GLOBIBOULGA"?
are you hot yet?:D

absolutely.

Spoken like a timorous harpy. Cant, I tell you.

Anyway. I think there's three ways of responding to words you don't understand - passive ("whatever"), curious ("what do you mean?") or passive-agressive/ agressive ("Why are you trying to alienate me, you cunt."). There's a context to everything, so if you're saying 'trangressive' [NB - this is not synonymous with 'transcendent'] or 'pithy' in a context of being a smug cunt (so, at a 6-year-old's birthday or something) then people are more likely to react agressively, regardless of whether or not they know what you mean. As some of you are aware, I'm a total word-whore, but I generally find that people pick up the meaning of words from context more than they do strict intention (hence catachreses like 'decimate' [which are often subsequently standardised, like 'decimate'])

Incidentally, I wouldn't say pithy was the same as cogent - I've always taken it to mean persuasive and alluring, with a degree of élan, while cogent, to me, belongs specifically to the fief (or ken, if you will) of formal (or philosophical) logic. But I've heard it more in terms of literature, "a pithy turn of phrase".

they are FUCKING MORONS. call them out on their ignorance damnit

I just sat through the inauguration, and one of our clerks, a college graduate, had no idea what we meant when we said "Tuskegee Airmen." a USA college graduate! DAMN!

I believe that people need to read more. Television is crammed full of words, but I wouldn't dare say that it is in any way an education in vocabulary; unless, of course, that is specifically what you have chosen to watch.

Granted, there is trash reading material as well, but it is far easier to find a book worth reading than a show worth watching.

pithy is "informatively pertinent"

even in trash reading though, the words used are varfied and not all the same words that television uses. for instance, on nearly any show, if someone uses a word like "alliterative" someone else is bound to make a comment like "Ohh big word," or "great word" to make the moron masses not feel too bad for not knowing what the word was, even though it is not pertinent to the plot to say "good word."

Umberto Eco is the keeper of words I do not know.

words are powerful and important

BIGG WORDZ = BIGG DIX

am i rite?

A good vocabulary might not make a person intelligent, still it is a very pleasant thing when people come across like they have good command of their own language. It also breaks from the monotonous chatter of every day life. Too much flowery language in inappropiate situations is too 'art gay', though. There is someone from the scripts department at work who tries talking to people like he is reading something off the dialogue of a play, complete with ridiculous body language. He's a pompous wanker.

I can't stand pompous pricks who are always force feeding their vocabularies down everyone else's throat; just to show off. It has to be one of the absolute biggest pet peeves that I have.

learn somethin foooo!!!! ;)

Y do u think I reed so much?

I abhor the "soundbite mentality" that pervades our news-spreading infosystems.
That is why I like NPR news, and the McLaughlin Group, because they give themselves time to answer!