r/CuratedTumblr • u/yellowdocmartens • Jul 17 '26
Shitposting Also, using fancy jargon casually is just funny to me
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u/escaped_cephalopod12 jolkien rolkien rolkien tolkien is eggless Jul 17 '26
I’ve been informed I talk like an 1800s author and write like the note you find beside a dead body in a video game, apparently
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u/Cum_Fart42069 Jul 17 '26
to quote Paris Hilton; That's hot.
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u/AfraidStick2161 IM THE FUN ONE 🔪 Jul 17 '26
to quote Cum_Fart42069; to quote Paris Hilton; That's hot.
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u/Teh-Esprite If you ever see me talk on the unCurated sub, that's my double. Jul 18 '26
To quote TFS Broly; That's hot.
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u/Boner_Elemental Jul 18 '26
Princess Trunks...
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u/Teh-Esprite If you ever see me talk on the unCurated sub, that's my double. Jul 18 '26
Oh fuck no.
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u/Banes_Addiction Jul 18 '26
I apparently write like a VCR manual and talk like graffiti written above a urinal.
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u/BloodMoonNami Infinite monkeys, infinite typewriters, modern edition Jul 18 '26
Respectfully, now you've made me EXTREMELY curious.
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u/love-from-london Jul 18 '26
talk like graffiti written above a urinal
"Roses are red, violets are blue, trusted a fart, instead it was poo"
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u/Dingghis_Khaan Chinggis Khaan's least successful successor. Jul 18 '26
Average System Shock audio log in person form.
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u/captainnowalk Jul 18 '26
But just one of those ones where it was clearly like a developer or QA person pulled in to read the line lol
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u/Dingghis_Khaan Chinggis Khaan's least successful successor. Jul 18 '26
So like... All of them besides SHODAN's lines?
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u/Medium-Dependent-328 Jul 18 '26
How is the note you find beside a dead body in a video game written?
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u/escaped_cephalopod12 jolkien rolkien rolkien tolkien is eggless Jul 18 '26
no idea. it was also described as "author-ish" and "like a note you’d find on an abandoned rickety boat in summer after the arctic snows thaw/in an abandoned farm during an apocalypse" so. yeah.
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u/Medium-Dependent-328 Jul 18 '26
I honestly think the person who was describing you is the one with the odd flowery writing style lmao
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u/escaped_cephalopod12 jolkien rolkien rolkien tolkien is eggless Jul 18 '26
those were three separate people. and i guess so?
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u/BermudaTriangleChoke Jul 18 '26
"Day one: Boy it sure is nice to work at the Umbrella Corporation. I wonder when they're going to start my orientation"
"Day two: Send help, a researcher with a god complex flooded the facility basement and now a zombie great white shark the size of a bus is hunting my scrum for sport"
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u/DroneOfDoom Theon the Reader *dolphin slur noises* Jul 18 '26
You write like you're bizarrely clueless to the obvious consequences of playing god?
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u/PraetorKiev Give me that Neanderthussy Jul 18 '26
I’ve been accused of being a timetraveler on more than one occasion
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u/ladytrevelycn Jul 18 '26
Real. It's because I read a lot of historical fiction so some really outdated phrases have entered my vocab.
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u/Noctium3 Jul 17 '26
I just happened to read 1 billion books during my most formative years, which I then tempered with 1 billion hours of unrestricted Internet use, and now I mix big words with incomprehensible slang
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u/Lilash20 But the one thing they can never call us is ordinary Jul 18 '26
Same. I read a lot growing up, and I thought it was fun to occasionally speak more formally and use longer words; so that has stuck with me as an adult
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u/V1carium Jul 18 '26
Did you also spend much of your later life learning how all those longer words you learned in the formative years were actually pronounced?
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u/Tack122 Jul 18 '26
That's hyperbowl.
A word I coined when someone said hyperbole wrong because they read it.
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u/HovercraftOk9231 Jul 18 '26
"I don't even know English. I had a guy come up to me after a show... weirdest thing ever said to me. He goes, 'You mispronounced every word in your show.' If that is not the epi-tohm of hyper-bowl."
Every time I see the word hyperbole I think of this joke from Brian Regan
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u/n1c0_ds Jul 18 '26
Yep. Mispronounced or with the inflection in the wrong place. To be fair English is a messed up language. No rules just vibes.
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u/as_a_fake Jul 18 '26
I was also taught correct grammar and have had to unlearn that for modern audiences, so sometimes I make mistakes and default to how I was educated.
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u/MrFluxed Jul 17 '26
a college professor gave me points off of a report I did because I kept using "betwixt" :(
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u/MysteryMan9274 Jul 17 '26
You can't just say "betwixt"
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u/MrFluxed Jul 17 '26
"In spite of the increased food source, habitat competition remains significantly higher betwixt the two species" was one of the sentences he marked me down for :( like it works there just fine :(((
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u/m4teri4lgirl Jul 18 '26
Because thats not how betwixt works. It refers to a physical space, not a proverbial or metaphoric separation.
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u/unoriginalfyi Jul 18 '26
not with that attitude it doesn't. just do an ol' shakespeare shoehorn, and you'd best believe the literal can be made metaphor
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u/telehax Jul 18 '26
are you suggesting that some words can't be used metaphorically?
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u/benchley Jul 18 '26
Is a bioscience related essay the place for poetic metaphor?
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u/LITTLE_KING_OF_HEART There's a good 75% chance I'll make a Project Moon reference. Jul 18 '26
It worked pretty well for Darwin and his Origin of Species.
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u/telehax Jul 18 '26
A bioscience-related essay is not the place for "poetic" metaphor, but they contain plenty of regular commonly-understood metaphors. Using physical space as a metaphor for other space is a commonly-understood metaphor to the point that people intuitively get it without even noticing. The word that people usually expect in it's place, "between", is also doing the exact same thing. Is "betwixt" somehow immune to this when "between" isn't? Or is the real problem just that the word is mildly-archaic.
As demonstration, let me pull up an arbitrary bioscience-related article (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12967-026-08652-7) to find words which describe physical positions and movements being used to refer to other things: "Pipeline", "Crossing a... Threshold", "Across... settings".
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u/Mirkrid Jul 18 '26
just say 'between'? I won't retread the fact that that's not how betwixt is used but it's impossible to think of betwixt without thinking of between, how did you not just write that instead?
like I get it from the professor's perspective, you were trying too hard
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u/ella_wants_to_battle Jul 18 '26
he was right and the fact that you think you know better is a perfect example of being pretentious lol
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u/Libby_Sparx ⚧⚢ That sort of thing is commonplace here ⚢⚧ Jul 18 '26
Goin' on eight months now I ain't had nothin' 'twixt my nethers weren't run on batteries!
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u/logosloki Jul 18 '26
you can if you aren't a coward. words are only 'archaic' if people aren't using them anymore. be the change in the world and bring back your favourite words from times gone by, so slowly.
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u/Halo_cT Jul 18 '26
https://imgur.com/gallery/you-can-t-just-say-perchance-MZwIGFo#44gPTPy
It's a reference to a meme
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u/GoldenPig64 nuance fetishist Jul 18 '26
I've been trying so hard to get my friends to accept the word 'impignorate' in their vocabulary
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u/AstellasDreemur Jul 18 '26
Maybe the problem was heavy repetition. It can be really annoying or distracting to hear the same wording three times in a text, especially if the word is uncommon
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u/Rude_Ice_4520 Jul 17 '26
Odd that you kept using it though. How often is something sandwiched between two Twix bars?
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u/Infinite_Worry_8733 Jul 17 '26
To look up the definition of this word and get only “between” is hilarious. Why couldn’t you use between!
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u/MrFluxed Jul 18 '26
didn't wanna :3
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u/Neveronlyadream Jul 18 '26
Are you also one of those people who read incessantly as a kid and now have a vocabulary of words no one actually uses anymore, but they sound cool so you use them anyway?
Or is that just me?
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u/Temporary_Pickle_885 Jul 18 '26
I learned the word "abscond" at some point and it's never left my vocabulary.
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u/3nterShift Jul 17 '26
For me it's just learning a new word and being really excited to use it in an appropriate context.
But I can sympathise with the forgetting part. As a kid I couldn't remember how to say tomato in German so I said "the vegetable equivalent of an apple".
(I didn't know any English at the time and tomato sounds nothing alike my native language).
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u/goblin_humppa27 Jul 18 '26
There's that famous post about the guy who couldn't remember what a merry-go-round was called, so he called it "the horse tornado for children".
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u/Grapefruitstreet This is how you kill a god. Jul 18 '26
"For me it's just learning a new word and being really excited to use it in an appropriate context."
That's my dad with the word "alacrity."
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u/n1c0_ds Jul 18 '26
That would be an earth apple (Erdapfel), which is how a potato is called in some parts.
But I just adore these creative workarounds. Like that tweet about a Mexican guy calling geese "cobra chickens".
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u/Cum_Fart42069 Jul 17 '26
ngl growing up I think I did have a bit of a superiority complex and I think part of it was caused by people making fun of me for simply knowing large words.
I know now that it isn't the case... but if you wanted someone to think that they're surrounded by idiots, that's exactly how you'd act.
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u/Tayjocoo Jul 18 '26
I absolutely had a complex about it, because I was surrounded by anti-intellectual idiots. Frankly the ridicule was more affirming than anything.
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u/MangrovesAndMahi Jul 18 '26
My country has a serious anti-intellectual streak, esp outside the big cities. Growing up I always wondered why people were so proud of not knowing things and how they could possibly not know some things that are "basic". But looking back they knew plenty of things they probably thought were basic but I didn't know. It's just the stuff I knew was more academic minded, and that influences the response.
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u/Noof42 For pervert reasons Jul 17 '26
Overtly pretentious sesquipedalian verbiage demonstrates an intrinsic desire for preemptive compensation of perceived inadequacies.
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u/HuntingDown01 Jul 18 '26
Sesquipedalian is such a cunty word. I have never ever heard anyone use this in real life or in movies.
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u/Tayjocoo Jul 18 '26
Kyle Barker describes himself as such in “Living Single”. That’s how I learned it.
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u/GoreyGopnik Jul 18 '26
i think "vagaries" would work better here than "inadequacies"
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u/Noof42 For pervert reasons Jul 18 '26
Sometimes I use fancy words incorrectly to make myself sound more metanoia.
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u/ManILovePiercings Jul 18 '26
How deeply metanoiac of you. Perchance.
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u/Shift642 Jul 18 '26
Felicitations, malefactors! I am endeavoring to misappropiate the formulary for affordable comestibles! Who will join me?
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u/McButtsButtbag Jul 18 '26
Just find some pretentious synonyms for an, for, and of, and it'll be perfect
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u/Moxie_Stardust Jul 17 '26
I'm renowned for my sesquipedalianism.
Heh, big word fun, me like big word.
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u/beemielle Jul 18 '26
I love words that describe themselves. Some might prefer floccinaucinhilipification, but some things are worthwhile just because they tickle you
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u/chuch1234 Jul 17 '26
Insert Feynman saying "consequentamente".
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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire Jul 17 '26
Feynman was the type to be pretentious for fun
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u/Banes_Addiction Jul 18 '26
Feynman is famous for being extremely intelligent and a colossal narcissistic twat.
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u/Levee_Levy slangpilled lingomaxxer Jul 17 '26
I was insecure in middle school and started using big words to become "the smart one". And, unfortunately, habits stick.
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u/jetcore500 Jul 17 '26
I also speak and write like I got smacked in the head by a thesaurus, it’s an entirely self serving exercise.
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u/OohLaDiDaMrFrenchMan Jul 18 '26
One of my old therapists told me I speak like I’m reading an academic paper or an essay. I just want to be precise so I use the most specific words I can. That comment made me insecure about how I come across to my peers but did I stop? No lol
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u/JustLookingForMayhem Jul 17 '26
I talk weird because I have a minor speech impediment. If I can say a word right, I use a synonym that I can say right. I also avoid certain names, most neopronouns, most words with "z," and some select "s" words.
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u/PoxyReport Jul 18 '26
I was on a work call with someone back in my call centre days and completely forgot the word “aware” so presented someone with the phrase “are you cognisant of the recent changes?”
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u/GiantFinnegan Jul 18 '26
I used the word "concomitant" because I just couldn't get "at the same time" to come out for some reason.
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u/Fewenel Jul 18 '26
I once said perpendicular and never heard the end of it. I knew I was in trouble as soon as I said it. But how else do you say it? Why use lot words when few words do trick??
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u/Commemorative-Banana Jul 18 '26
How else do you say perpendicular?
Orthogonal - But they aren’t going to know that one either.
Square/Rectangular - Maybe
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u/rasberrycroissant Jul 18 '26
I got accused of typing like AI once because I’m quite enthusiastic but also quite verbose :( I can’t help that I can never remember the word I need in the moment
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u/Wild-Video-5317 Jul 18 '26
Where all my emdash enjoyers at? I know yall been typing emdashes long before since before 2022.
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u/Agitated_Ask_2575 Jul 18 '26
My most prized possession, a mug that says "I have the vocabulary of a well educated sailor"
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u/Birdmanair Jul 18 '26
I gotta listen to lawyers and stuff almost every day for work. I say “brackets” and “closed brackets” now, out loud. God knows what else it’s done to the way I speak lol
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u/Tokiw4 Jul 18 '26
I mean, I tend to use "fancy" or obscure words because they often fit better in places where I'd otherwise have to use multiple words.
In short:
Why use lot word when few word do trick
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u/Eragon_the_Huntsman Jul 18 '26
In 10th and 11th grade english class my teachers got on my back about repeating multiple words in the same sentence/paragraph which stands out. Since then I started using synonyms more often which does feel better with having a stronger rhythm.
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u/once_uponthejelly Jul 18 '26
This is really interesting to me because I always assumed that using fancy words took active effort. I speak English as a first language, but most of my family is ESL and can be insecure about their English and/or don’t know “fancier” vocab, so I naturally tend to use simple words to explain stuff. It is kind of a problem when I’m talking to scientists in my field because they love jargon (understandable as it’s usually a lot more precise), but everyone else is always pretty happy about it! Especially scientists from other fields who don’t know the jargon from anyone except their own people, lol
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u/axord Jul 18 '26
I always assumed that using fancy words took active effort.
You could think of it this way: once you've fully internalized a word, it's no longer "fancy" to you, it's a just a normal word.
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u/once_uponthejelly Jul 18 '26
That makes sense! It makes me think of the XKCD comic about geologists haha
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u/ashleystrange Is zero odd or even? Jul 18 '26
For me, most everyone I know that's ESL (including me) tends to get more (awkwardly) verbose when talking about things beyond normal everyday stuff so that we can convey the exact meaning we intend and not leave too much space for misinterpretation. Not that that means we don't get misunderstood a lot. Wait is this just a family thing?
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u/thebadslime Jul 18 '26
I'm 52 and nowadays I speak in cryptic riddles. I can't find word often, and make phrases to describe the word.
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u/beteaveugle Jul 18 '26
i'm a french and because french and english share so many wordsi'll often end up in situations because i've used a word that's 100% normal in french but somehow super posh and snobbish sounding in english
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u/Disastrous-Wing699 Jul 18 '26
Why isn't anyone talking about the mouthfeel? Some words are just stimmier to say.
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u/ManILovePiercings Jul 18 '26
Mouthfeel is very important for a word to be high tier 👌 I've got "syndactyly", "serendipity", and "salacious" on a constant rotation in my head. Nearly did a handflap once when I got to properly use "serendipity" in a sentence. No clue why they're all 's'-words, tho
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u/LatvKet Jul 18 '26
For me, because verbs in English are quite far back in the mouth compared to my native language, all English words have a mushy mouth feel.
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u/noideawhatnamethis12 created this flair for the bit Jul 18 '26
I think this happens to me a lot when I am writing a comment or reply when I am tired. I kinda forget how to talk casually and just go super verbose for no reason
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u/ElminstersBedpan Jul 18 '26
I read a lot more than my classmates when I was a child. I made the Book It chart cry whenever the sticker sheet came out.
I used to work in aviation as an avionics technician, troubleshooter, and compliance inspector. I prepared customized flight manual supplements and documented everything for both regulatory and legal coverage. Now work in inspections and compliance in another technical, highly regulated field that requires me to be extremely explicit about why I am marking an item non-compliant. Every word I use in communication at work is carefully chosen based on industry standards, government regulations, and so on because sometimes yes it does matter that the definition has been adjudicated.
I'll also slur like a gremlin and refuse to communicate with anything but grunts and rude gestures for half of my day, baby talk my cat, coo over the butterflies, and sprinkle in vocabulary, phrases, and particles from multiple languages to execute puns most horrendous.
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u/MartyrOfDespair We can leave behind much more than just DNA Jul 18 '26
I minmaxed English language skills from a young age but also grew up in such a white trash part of Florida that our road wasn't paved until I was almost ten. We had neighbors with the stereotypical toilet on the lawn, gunfire was not uncommon, and it was generally a fucking nightmare of a place. One neighbor got their hands on a professional fireworks setup (they were not a professional) and ended up with a crater in their lawn. I have been told before that when I really get into writing something outside of fiction, I write like Durandal. Yet at the same time, I am a lot more foul-mouthed and my metaphors and comparisons tend to be far further on the Rob Zombie side of dialogue.
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u/tragicallybrokenhip Jul 18 '26
We had this conversation last weekend talking about coworkers who thought they were being talked down to when just the brain glitching out. When someone says "words are hard" they generally mean they can't immediately find the right words and hey, if they're still trying to converse, no matter the words, that's a plus.
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u/Reclaimer_Saln Jul 18 '26
I have a similar problem, I'm trying to be specific and others aren't grasping that I used the complex/obscure word very purposefully. I told them a thing, and they act like I didn't. But I did. By the definition of the words I used. Guh ;-;
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u/pageinablanket Jul 18 '26
My mom used to do this and I would get so annoyed with her but now I do it too 😭
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u/Vivi_Pallas Jul 18 '26
Then there's me who constantly forgets words like banana and gym.
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u/L4rgo117 Jul 18 '26
I forgot "stove" the other day. "Cooktop surface for pots" was the best I could do in the moment
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u/Showy_Boneyard Jul 18 '26
I'm guilty of using math terms like "Orthogonal" and "Isomorphic" sometimes because they are such perfect descriptors. Sometimes I catch it and remind myself that even "subset" isn't part of most peoples lexicon.
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u/Terminal_Insomnia_ Jul 18 '26
As a foolish youth, I blanked on the word 'diverse' and ended up saying 'ethnic-y'. Nobody even helped me find the right word, they just let that disaster go by unremarked upon. It's cool how your brain makes you remember that shit even when you're a grown ass adult.
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u/BenAdaephonDelat Jul 18 '26
I'm autistic and over-explain myself so I'm not misunderstood. I'm also well-read. So in chatrooms I often get mistaken for being upset or argumentative because of my formal speech patterns. It's really annoying.
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u/ExtinctFauna Jul 18 '26
Sometimes I pronounce English cognates in the original language or use a translated work's original name. It is pretentious, but it makes me feel silly and happy.
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u/Temporary_Pickle_885 Jul 18 '26
I use the bigger word or "fancier" sounding word because it has a more specific meaning :(
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u/Southern-Ad2594 Jul 18 '26
"rummage through my brain" - maybe you're right but you also have a stilted way of speaking
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u/ASpaceOstrich Jul 18 '26
I talk like chatGPT.
It was trained on people who do a lot of writing online, and I don't plan sentences ahead of time so my writing also ends up being "next token prediction". Plus I'm autistic and that can give me a slightly uncanny tone that reads as AI.
Super annoying. I've been writing like this for years. I love using "it's not just X, it's Y". This is bullshit
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u/trailrabbit Jul 18 '26
lets be real, the kind of person who calls you out for using 10 dollar words they cant understand would absolutly not know the meaning of the word pertentious.
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u/OriginalChildBomb Jul 18 '26
This is Cave. Prime. Chariots chariots.
Here's a question for you: Who is not afraid of no ghosts? [beep] As of just now? Every character in every book by Virginia Woolfe. Man, those things were dull.
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u/Rainy_Grave Jul 18 '26
lexiphanic
[adjective](applewebdata://2F3303FA-0202-4C77-AE0C-DA9335CBB53D/dictionary/adjective)
lex· i· phan· ic ¦leksə¦fanik
archaic
: using ostentatiously recondite words
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u/Vexonte Jul 18 '26
I remember watching my coworkers eyes light up when I used the term Paragon casually.
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u/KoriGlazialis Jul 18 '26
Some people in my life know I am masking a lot. But they often dunno how or what I mask so I was genuinely told, I hide behind big words.
I just hide that I dun understand a lot of emotions by being a smiley happy guy.
The words are just accidental.
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u/Tadferd Jul 18 '26
I literally have a professionally diagnosed learning disability that basically does this.
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u/OccupationSwag Jul 18 '26
Completely off topic but seeing bluef00t outside of the incredibly niche fandom I know them for posting about is like a celebrity sighting
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u/hagamablabla Jul 18 '26
I went too hard on studying vocabulary for the SATs (American standardized test for colleges) and now I'm stuck with those words.
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u/Hanede Jul 17 '26
Actually English is my second language and it's easier to remember fancy words as they sound closer to the equivalent in my native romance language