Vocabulary -- What Is It, and How Do I Get Me Some?

Nowaysis · 31-05-06 22:37:08

Jakeview wrote:

Lia wrote:
a nerdy cerebral way.
Don't knock it. I think your missive just got me aroused. You certainly have a way with words, Lia. That's sexy in its own way.
I'm curious [...] to what you attribute your fine vocabulary. This question goes to a number of you here on the forum. Is it purely from educational standards where you grew up, from voraciously reading whatever you could get your hands on, from the people that surrounded you? How do you feel you developed your writing style?

This topic is right up my alley, so I figured I'd start a thread instead of waiting for someone else to do so.

Coming from an academic background (my parents we're still studying when I grew up), a large vocabulary and being able to express oneself accurately, flexibly and in a diverse manner feels mostly like second nature, but I have also actively chosen to further what comes naturally.

My current use of language is always very conscious, I want to figure out what I'm going to say in good time before I say it, so it comes out just the way I want it to. Due to the nature of spoken conversation, this can sometimes lead to pauses several seconds long during which I'm searching for the right word to say "bend" without actually saying "bend", where a normal person would just go ahead and say "bend". It seems horribly inefficient at times, but my hope is that by always striving towards maximum clarity, by looking for the exact right words, my communication makes up for any sluggishness by being all the more to the point.

As is evident, it takes on a bastardised "run on sentence/stream of conscious chatter"-form in writing, with the only difference being that you people won't have to sit through all the little pauses I made to plan my wording so I don't repeat myself or come off as unorganized. Also, I'm not sure this shows up as clearly in English (seeing as it's my second language, and although fluent, I'm nowhere near as proficient in it as I am in Swedish), but I have some literary pretentions, which is why I practically revel in my own not-so-brief form of written communication.

Of course, studying English, and now Literature at University hasn't helped one bit.

Last edited by Nowaysis (31-05-06 22:38:28)

Elfman · 31-05-06 23:04:30

Jakeview wrote:

I'm curious(and this is probably the wrong thread to ask)

When has that ever stopped us .

Jakeview wrote:

to what you attribute your fine vocabulary. This question goes to a number of you here on the forum. Is it purely from educational standards where you grew up, from voraciously reading whatever you could get your hands on, from the people that surrounded you? How do you feel you developed your writing style?

I don’t really think that I am one of the contributors you refer to Jakeview but I’m going to be arrogant and reply to it anyway. My maternal grandfather was a Romany gipsy (born around 1885) and illiterate. When he met my grandmother, settled down and had kids he made sure that his children read. My mother passed the love of reading to her children and encouraged us to read (often aloud to the whole family) and to write from an early age. By the time I started school at the age of five I was by far the most literate in my class. I could write little essays or stories on virtually any subject given to me without pausing. Writing was as natural to me as speaking. I love to write. Journals, poems, short stories, songs used to be my main fare but in the last few years my output has been almost exclusively drama. Dialogue is notoriously difficult to write especially if you want it to “play”. By that I mean it is technically easy for the actors to perform. (Easy to remember, allows for comfortable breath control and clear diction etc). It is a unique, challenging form of writing which I find tremendously rewarding. (Especially if a play gets to performance and you can sit in an audience and watch a group of actors breathe life into you characters).

Elfman

(edited an hour after posting)
Total aside to this aside. A good friend of mine has just left after informing my house-mate and I that he will be directing “Cinderella” this Christmas and wants us to play the ugly sisters so it looks like I’ll be getting the frocks out of mothballs again. Looking forward to it as he is one of the best Dames I know and I can learn a lot from him.

“Oh yes it is!!!!”

Last edited by Elfman (01-06-06 00:40:43)

Nowaysis · 31-05-06 23:17:07

Elfman wrote:

Dialogue is notoriously difficult to write especially if you want it to “play”. By that I mean it is technically easy for the actors to perform. (Easy to remember, allows for comfortable breath control and clear diction etc). It is a unique, challenging form of writing which I find tremendously rewarding.

That's quite interesting, because I have the complete opposite behaviour. Like I said, I have literary pretensions, and I sometimes write poetry (and attempts at fiction, but they never get anywhere). The thing is, I used to never, ever read out loud what I wrote, what mattered was how it read in my mind, not what it sounded like. Allt his had the predictable result that rhythm and meter had no place in my writing (quite aside from the fact that I barely knew what they were before I started studying literature). Nowadays, I'm a lot more sensitive to those aspects of writing, alongside the actual content, but since I've never bothered to learn about proper rhythm outside of what little was covered in a very general sense in my literature studies, I'm still very much an amateur in that department.

Also, breathing comfort and clear diction is something I would never have thought of when writing dialogue, and it never even occured to me that one had to think about it when writing for the stage. Quite fascinating regardless of my longwinded, egotistical comments about "reading in the mind".

Last edited by Nowaysis (31-05-06 23:18:38)

Warmtouch · 01-06-06 01:23:29

I don't read my writing aloud, but I usually write in my own speaking voice rather than a "writerly" voice, so it comes off as pretty readable. (It probably doesn't hurt that my speaking voice is a bit formal and old-fashioned anyway.) Rhythm and pace are critical. I don't think about them much, but I find myself automatically varying between long sentences and short ones.

Elfman, I love writing dialogue, especially picking out a vocabulary for characters and creating little linguistic quirks for them. Putting it all together and making it fit as natural conversation is a bit like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. How do you get from one topic to another in a credible manner? Great fun.

Nowaysis, if you really want to study the art of writing English, read Winston Churchill's speeches. He was a brilliant orator with an unmatched command of the language both written and spoken.

captaintp · 01-06-06 10:13:28

Nowaysis wrote:

In another thread:
Jakeview wrote:
Lia wrote:
a nerdy cerebral way.
Don't knock it. I think your missive just got me aroused. You certainly have a way with words, Lia. That's sexy in its own way.
I'm curious [...] to what you attribute your fine vocabulary. This question goes to a number of you here on the forum. Is it purely from educational standards where you grew up, from voraciously reading whatever you could get your hands on, from the people that surrounded you? How do you feel you developed your writing style?
Of course, studying English, and now Literature at University hasn't helped one bit.

Of course not! Note the absence of a smiley here. You can't learn a foreign language just in school!

There's a simple answer to this question - "How Do I Get Me Some?":
Watch a lot of movies. You're already on your way if you look through the lucubrations - but when you start renting 6 DVDs a week, then we're talking. Talking with a rich and growing vocabulary that is.

That's how I learned english, and it ain't so bad, is it?

Good Luck to y'all,
Cap'n TightPants

Nowaysis · 01-06-06 10:41:31

Certainly not, I'd say both you and Burlesque show a leve of proficiency in English I wouldn't expect from my average country men.

What I actually meant though, was that studying English and Literature, has only furthered my somewhat excentric language behaviour, the language itself, I learned in England at the tender age of eight.

Elfman · 01-06-06 14:19:52

Nowaysis wrote:

Certainly not, I'd say both you and Burlesque show a leve of proficiency in English I wouldn't expect from my average country men.

Nowaysis you and all the Scandinavians on this site show a command of English I wouldn't expect from the majority of my own countrymen and I'm English (and I'm sure that all of the other Brits, Yanks, Ausies and Canuks will agree with me on that).

Elfman.

Last edited by Elfman (01-06-06 14:47:43)

Nowaysis · 01-06-06 20:13:01

Considering the varying level of correctness abound in the written language on Swedish dicussionboards, I'd say the same thing about my own contry men's native language.

I think it's quite possible that we try extra hard because it's a foreign language. In your first language, it's much easier to be sloppy, because you know rather well what will pass as informal language, and what will be considered borderline illiteracy. But when it's a language you don't know quite as well, at least I tend to be even more careful, so as not to cause any misunderstandings or embarassment for myself simply because I couldn't be arsed to express myself properly.

Burlesque · 01-06-06 22:02:06

I agree with Captaintp about watching movies. I've never actually visited an English speaking country, but I've read a massive amount of English and American literature, and I'm a filmaholic, and that seems to do the trick. I also partly agree with Nowaysis that one tends to put in a bit of extra effort in a foreign language, but on the other hand I think most people in most forums just think it's OK to be sloppy in such an informal environment. I can sometimes grit my teeth to the point where I can't go on reading when I'm on a forum where people seem incapable of spelling, and this goes for native English speakers as well as us "foreign types". I'm that kind of person . While not incredibly Internet-savvy, I've seen quite a few forums, and I've never come across one even approaching the sophistication of language and thought present here. Maybe I've just been visiting the wrong forums, but still ...

Like Nowaysis, I'm big on clarity, and it has happened on more than one occasion that I've gone to bed after writing something here, and wondered if I have been precise and understandable enough, and that is a problem that I rarely encounter when I'm writing or reading in Swedish, so there IS a real diiference: you're never quite as confident in a foreign language. Also, the risk of accidentally insulting someone is MUCH greater!

"Oh no it isn't!"

Burlesque.

Jakeview · 02-06-06 09:51:00

Thanks for the thread, Nowaysis. I think I'm greatly expanding my vocabulary by reading all your posts here! The brain-power here is pretty remarkable.

cynicism · 02-06-06 22:35:15

The big danger to expanding your vocabulary through reading is that you don't hear the new words, so you may not know how to pronounce them. Not a huge problem in English, mostly, but still something of a concern, particularly if you follow the paradigm mentioned above, of reading your text aloud for pacing and breath control. (for readers not familiar with it, paradigm is pronounced para-dime)

When communicating in informal written form I have a tendency to make asides, usually parenthetically. This, while it accurately reflects the way my train of thought is going, can be distracting, and may even derail my reader's own train of thought (I think I pushed that metaphor beyond its breaking point...). I should probably exercise restraint, but my restraint is fat and lazy, so it doesn't get a lot of exercise (another metaphor screaming for mercy - sorry about that).

I am waiting for a contribution to this topic from the inestimable Lia (at least).

Elfman · 02-06-06 23:48:40

A couple of questions come to mind on this topic:

1. When you are reading poetry, do you read it aloud?

2. Smilies. We all use them, but are they not an indication of sloppy writing? Surely a sentence is badly composed if I need to put an at the end of it to indicate that I am being humorous (and are they not somewhat insulting to my intended readers inteligence)?

Elfman

blissed · 03-06-06 00:17:10

Jakeview wrote:

The brain-power here is pretty remarkable.

Thankyou

Everyones got their own personality and writing style but for me, It doesn't insult my intelligence if people use smilies. I used to think that, but when all you have to communicate with is text and a few pics you need all the help you can get. in fact sometimes there are so many possible meanings behind a single comment that to know the exact meaning you'd have to be telepathic or have superhuman mystical powers and I don't like to use mine to much because it's not fair, and it sets me apart from everybody else.
I could describe what your wearing right now but it would only spook you out. So I won't.
Exept. I can't say pink lace is my favourite not on a man

Last edited by blissed (03-06-06 00:18:20)

Elfman · 03-06-06 09:09:37

blissed wrote:

I could describe what your wearing right now but it would only spook you out. So I won't.
Exept. I can't say pink lace is my favourite not on a man

You astonish me Holmes. How did you know?

Elfman.

Burlesque · 03-06-06 15:57:46

I tend to favour Blissed's reasoning here. I prefer to use too many smileys rather than too few, since it's so easy to be misinterpreted, something that is all the more important to avoid when you're writing directly to someone, as often is the case in a forum.

I suppose I had better wear a suit and tie in front of the computer from now on, just in case Blissed decides to direct his supernatural powers at me.

blissed · 03-06-06 20:04:04

No, you can carry on wearing a bra and panties if you like. It doesn't bother me.

Elfman · 03-06-06 20:21:22

blissed wrote:

No, you can carry on wearing a bra and panties if you like. It doesn't bother me.

Careful blissed or I'll have to post that picture of me in the pink dress again (and you've taught me how to do it properly this time).

(ambivalence).

Elfman.

Last edited by Elfman (03-06-06 20:34:16)

Burlesque · 03-06-06 21:40:20

blissed wrote:

No, you can carry on wearing a bra and panties if you like. It doesn't bother me.

It's uncanny! You could make a lot of money with this ability!

Burlesque.

digitalist · 03-06-06 22:29:56

Nowaysis wrote:

I'm curious [...] to what you attribute your fine vocabulary. This question goes to a number of you here on the forum. Is it purely from educational standards where you grew up, from voraciously reading whatever you could get your hands on, from the people that surrounded you? How do you feel you developed your writing style?

Probably the single most important factor in my own vocabulary is my love of reading. Ever since I was quite young I've loved reading (both fiction and non-fiction) and this exposed me to a much broader vocabulary than many.

My own writing has also been imesurably shaped by writing academically in my undergrad program (now complete) and in arguing politics/etc on the internet in a number of venues where precisely phrasing my words so as to communicate my meaning accurately and without being unecessarily inflamitor. Both have influenced me to be very precise with my word choices so that I can try to communicate exactly what I mean.

I'm truly impressed, however, by those here who can write fiction. I've never been able to do so with any skill. I do write non-fiction, particularly academic papers, quite well, but that is an entirely different thing.

blissed · 03-06-06 23:42:27

I'm impressed by people who can write books. I love writing short things, well, very short things. I tend to run out of mental energy for it quite quickly. It might be quite nice to get together with someone else and have a conversation about our ideas and let that (recorded) conversation develop into the story. A conversation would constantly stimulate your mind. You'd never get bored. You could write an erotic story with someone while having sex with them and role playing. Play back the tape and see what you have. It could form the basis for a good piece of work.

.

Last edited by blissed (03-06-06 23:45:58)

blissed · 03-06-06 23:53:07

Elfman wrote:

blissed wrote:
No, you can carry on wearing a bra and panties if you like. It doesn't bother me.
Careful blissed or I'll have to post that picture of me in the pink dress again (and you've taught me how to do it properly this time).
(ambivalence).
Elfman.

It's the picture of you without the pink dress we all wanna see come on. don't be shy Actually it's been really hot here today and I was walking around naked for a while, and I thought of shooting myself and posting a few pics, but then I thought, no, it would only make you all insanely jealous

.

Last edited by blissed (03-06-06 23:54:28)

Burlesque · 04-06-06 00:08:18

That picture of Elfman in drag is a modern classic of photography and should be displayed in an up-scale art gallery or museum. It is among the funniest things I've seen in a long time, and I hope Elfman won't come after me with a chainsaw for saying so.

Burlesque.

Elfman · 04-06-06 08:58:02

Burlesque wrote:

That picture of Elfman in drag is a modern classic of photography and should be displayed in an up-scale art gallery or museum. It is among the funniest things I've seen in a long time, and I hope Elfman won't come after me with a chainsaw for saying so.
Burlesque.

The audiences liked it too Burlesque. (If you remember I was playing an ugly sister in "Cinderella"). When I came on for my curtain call at the end of the first performance they cheered. They're not supposed to do that when you're the villain. Oops . *

Of course now the thought occurs do all of you who aren't Brits or Aussies know what British pantomime is?

* Actualy the fact that they cheered rather than booing and hissing was partly my own fault which I'll tell you about if an opportunity ever arises.

digitalist wrote:

I'm truly impressed, however, by those here who can write fiction. I've never been able to do so with any skill. I do write non-fiction, particularly academic papers, quite well, but that is an entirely different thing.

Since my education was a very basic one (minimum requirement for British Civil Service) I have never encountered this problem but I have known a few university graduates with literary aspirations who maintained that the style of writing required for their university course set their creative writing back years.

It's a pity that Khanada Faye isn't around at the moment. I know that she has just completed a University degree (MA in Arizona I think) and is half through writing a novel. Her input would have been useful here.

Elfman.

Last edited by Elfman (04-06-06 11:27:26)

Nowaysis · 04-06-06 23:07:24

Elfman wrote:

A couple of questions come to mind on this topic:
1. When you are reading poetry, do you read it aloud?
2. Smilies. We all use them, but are they not an indication of sloppy writing? Surely a sentence is badly composed if I need to put an at the end of it to indicate that I am being humorous (and are they not somewhat insulting to my intended readers inteligence)?
Elfman

Two very interesting points.

1. Reading poetry aloud.

I never used to, and it still doesn't come naturally, but I've gotten "better" at it since I started studying literature. The first time I really noticed the difference was when I spent the better part of an afternoon reciting "The Ancient Marinere" to myself. It was beautiful and moving enough as it was, but it just seemed to come alive in a different way when I heard the rhymes and the rhythm, not just thought them. This despite the fact that some rhymes didn't work with modern pronunciation and that I didn't actually understand even half the symbolic content and literary allusions and references.

Reading my own stuff aloud is even harder to do, because I usually just think the words before I write them. I do sound the lines out quite often as I write them (at least if the work in question is supposed to have some sort of meter), but I hardly ever actually read entire poems back to myself (and certainly not to anyone else).

2. To smile or not to smile...

This is a constant headache for anyone who claims to be a good writer, or at least to have a decent command of the written language, but I think it can very much depend on what attitude you adopt towards the text you're currently writing and the message you want to get across.

The purpose of smilies is to make communication in pure writing more efficient, clearer, to avoid any possible confusion regarding the communicator's state of mind and intention with his/her message. As such, I see no reason to avoid them on a pure principle (though I won't categorically condemn people for doing so), they do after all serve a very important purpose that should'nt be overlooked simpy because of reactionary views on language and communication. Not everyone has it in them to be eloquent and precise beyond questioning in writing. People who aren't used to writing, or who have no other use for writing than these simple forms of communication might not be able to communicate their state of mind and tone of voice through mere words. Who are we to rob them of this immensely powerful tool?

However, if we broaden our view from written, pure communication on messageboards and in emails (or indeed traditional letters, though they tend to be longer and perhaps written by more experinced scribes), and also consider literature, it all becomes a bit more complicated. One of the greatest aspects of some of the greatest pieces of prose and poetry ever written, is that there may be one single message the writer was trying to get across, but there is hardly ever one single interpretation. A line that seems at first glance to be dead serious, might by one reader be seen as ironic, by another as cynical, and by yet another as hopeful. Start inserting smilies here, and you'd be robbing a lot of the so called serious literature of its very essence (and not to mention us literature critics of our livelyhood).

See how ambiguous that last parenthesis is when I refuse to illustrate it with a smily?

Last edited by Nowaysis (05-06-06 00:27:24)

Elfman · 05-06-06 00:11:53

Nowaysis wrote:

The first time I really noticed the difference was when I spent the better part of an afternoon reciting "The Ancient Marinere" to myself. It was beautiful and moving enough as it was, but it just seemed to come alive in a different way when I heard the rhymes and the rhythm, not just thought them.

In my opinion a poem like "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" or Oscar Wilde's "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" should not only be read aloud but standing up!!! I appreciate that as an actor I perhaps approach the sound and "textures" of language from a slightly different viewpoint than most. Cadence, inflection, pace are as important to me as the actual meaning of the lines themselves. Indeed a line's meaning may be changed quite markedly by how it is delivered. 20 actors performing Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy will deliver it 20 different ways. Each one will subtly "massage" the text to fit their particular inperpretation of it. To answer my own question I beleive that all poetry should be read aloud. It is the art of the spoken word. Not the written. A nice example. Read the following quotation silently to yourself:

"O, most wicked haste, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets".

Now read it aloud.

On the subject of smilies I don't really have a problem with them. They were designed to allow us to write in short, choppy sentences on internet forums without having to concern ourselves with ambiguities and to avoid accidentaly insulting readers from different cultures or those for who English is not their first language who might otherwise misinterpret the intended meaning of a sentence.

Elfman.

Last edited by Elfman (05-06-06 00:30:23)

#1 31-05-06 22:37:08

Vocabulary -- What Is It, and How Do I Get Me Some?

#2 31-05-06 23:04:30

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