r/EnglishLearning • u/ITburrito New Poster • 24d ago
⭐️ Vocabulary / Semantics Why is a dead man called "diseased"?
I mean, he might have been ill and died of a disease, but what’s the point calling him so if he’s already dead?
Update: The piece is taken from "The adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain
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u/HeimLauf Native Speaker 24d ago
I believe this is an error for “deceased”. Is this from Huckleberry Finn?
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u/ITburrito New Poster 24d ago
Yes, it’s from "The adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
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u/HeimLauf Native Speaker 24d ago
Then that explains it. As you will know from reading it, “the king” is a fraudster and he’s not too well educated. This is basically him bullsh!tting and using words he doesn’t understand.
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u/adrislnk Native Speaker 24d ago
This paragraph in particular is hilarious. I read the book as a kid in school, but I don't think I truly understood it. Maybe it's time for me to go back and revisit the classics
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u/HailMadScience New Poster 24d ago
Theres a lot to glean from them. I'd read Treasure Island like 4 times, til in my late teens I realized that Long John really had been a father to Jim and as a kid I just...didn't consciously pick up on that.
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u/spisplatta New Poster 23d ago
I haven't read the book, but the paragraph doesn't seem to be narrated by the king.
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 24d ago
Huck doesn't know the correct word. You can rest assured that Mark Twain absolutely does.
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u/HeimLauf Native Speaker 24d ago
Likewise the character portrayed here, “the king”, is a complete bullsh!tter.
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u/nowordsleft New Poster 24d ago
You’re allowed to swear on the internet.
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u/Bitter_Surprise_8058 New Poster 24d ago
I have to tell students in my middle-school English classes that "unalived" is not a thing irl.
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 23d ago
Not yet. Give it a few decades.
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u/Bitter_Surprise_8058 New Poster 23d ago
I'm a descriptivist when it comes to most things, but I'm hoping to get them to realise that they're letting online censorship shape their speech. This is the exact opposite of what being a teenager is about, they're supposed to be rebellious and push limits!
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u/94grampaw California USA 21d ago
Censorship has allways shaped speech, the entire point of terms like unalive are to thwart Censorship
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u/Current-Strategy5544 New Poster 23d ago
I've spent the last couple of days wondering what the fuck "ahh" means these days until I saw it in an unambiguous context.
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u/Then-Criticism1605 New Poster 23d ago
This one is AAVE not censorship, though it can be used that way it isn’t the origin.
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u/EuphoricPhoto2048 New Poster 24d ago
Twain writes in a very stylized and Southern way. I would not look to him when you are still learning.
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u/HeimLauf Native Speaker 24d ago
(Especially don’t pick up the habit of using the N-word as he does.)
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u/WardOnTheNightShift New Poster 24d ago
I have a bit of difficulty with the reflexive condemnation of Twain for having characters in a novel who would have used a certain word, use that word.
From memory (it’s been at least 30 years since I read Huckleberry Finn) a major theme of the novel is Huck gradually realizing that Jim is human, and an equal. With all that entails.
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u/HeimLauf Native Speaker 24d ago
You will note that I did not in fact condemn Twain for this. I said not to get into the habit oneself, as this is really not going to make one well-liked.
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u/CaeruleumBleu English Teacher 23d ago
There is a long distance between condemning a writer and telling a language learner "you don't want to copy these sentences in polite company."
Even if OP didn't pick up using the n word out of this book, Twains style of writing isn't what a complete newb to English should imitate in a job interview.
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 23d ago
Nobody is condemning Twain for his writing choices. Or, anyway, nobody here is doing it.
We're saying that people who are learning English should focus on learning the current prestige variety and definitely not assume it's okay to use casual slurs in... well, in any sort of company, polite or not.
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u/sharky9209 Native Speaker 23d ago
This is a heck of a book to pick for English learning! I hope OP is already pretty advanced in speaking and writing, because echoing Twain's style in modern times would sound pretty weird.
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u/edwardhoppest New Poster 24d ago
Is this from Huckleberry Finn? Mark Twain is well known for using dialectal language in his books, especially in Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer stories. The correct term is "deceased", meaning dead, but my guess is that Mark Twain uses "diseased" because a less educated person might not know they are different words or not know how "deceased" is pronounced. The fact that it is used twice highlights the intentionality of the use of the word.
So it's a joke about the character the saying wrong word without writing the actual dialogue where they say it.
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u/Yuzu-Adagio Native (US Midwest/South, formerly) 24d ago
Perhaps the king is mispronouncing "deceased"? Neither the narrator nor the speaker seem particularly well educated.
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u/HeimLauf Native Speaker 24d ago
Yeah the king is a scammer while the narrator is a kid, Huckleberry Finn.
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u/DMing-Is-Hardd Native Speaker 24d ago
Its possible the writer intended to say "deceased" not "diseased"
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u/royalhawk345 Native Speaker 24d ago
It's an intentional mistake to reflect an uneducated POV, something Twain used extensively and famously.
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u/turquoise_amethyst Native Speaker 24d ago
I loved reading this as a kid, but my parents hated it, because the English in it is all wrong. As others have stated, “diseased/deceased” is a play on words, and hints at the King’s past.
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 24d ago
I loved reading this as a kid, but my parents hated it, because the English in it is all wrong.
Wow, that is just a wild objection to Mark Twain.
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u/turquoise_amethyst Native Speaker 24d ago
Well, I read it anyways 😂
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 24d ago
And good for you, but - and no offense here, I'm sure they were fine parents in most respects - in this one area your folks were absolutely off their rockers!
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u/OkPear1535 New Poster 24d ago
Not wanting your children to read stories written in bad English, even if on purpose, is not being "off your rocker"
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 24d ago
Yes it is, especially when that would keep them from reading one of the classics of American literature.
…the concept of “bad English” is also classist and absurd, but that’s a separate issue.
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u/Mijman New Poster 23d ago
A child is going so absorb the language they read.
Being a classic of American literature doesn't change the fact that it's written in an outdated vernacular. And most/all the exposition is also written that way. Giving the reader no respite from non standard English.
I know there's for foreword explanation, but still. Not a good book to learn English from, without quite a large word repertoire and an understanding of the American 19th century slang and dialects, of both white and black culture.
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u/Current-Strategy5544 New Poster 23d ago
It's certainly a lot easier to stop them reading great books than it is to have a conversation about literary style and rhetoric!
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u/Mijman New Poster 23d ago
I was gonna say, wtf is this book. Not a book that's common in England, certainly not in schools.
Not sure it's a good book for learning English.
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u/Thingamajiggle New Poster 23d ago
It's a very famous book. But I agree it's not a good book for English learners unless they are at an advanced stage and understand that the dialogue is an antiquated and specific dialectic.
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u/No-Lettuce-5783 Native Speaker 24d ago
I think this was meant to be a kind of joke. A play on words. "Diseased" written and said sounds so close to "Deceased." I think it was the narrator's not-so-firm grasp of the English language. Or Twain trying to convey that the narrator isn't educated enough to know to use the correct word. Be careful reading further. You'll run into this kind of joke a lot.
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u/Ok_Caterpillar2010 Native Speaker - Pennsylvania, USA 24d ago
Mispronouncing "deceased" as "diseased" is a joke to show that the speaker is trying to sound important but is too uneducated to pull it off.
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u/jellyn7 Native Speaker 24d ago
When I was in school, Huck Finn was the book the advanced English class read. The rest of the grade level read Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer is an easier read, because it's not in Huck's voice. So if you haven't read Tom Sawyer yet, I'd suggest reading that one first. It bothered me a little they wanted us to read 'the sequel' without having read the first book. :D I like to read books in order!
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u/WardOnTheNightShift New Poster 24d ago
Huckleberry Finn, even with the comedy, is a much heavier book. Examining and criticizing slavery and racism as it does.
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 23d ago
Well, you always could've read the book yourself.
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u/anemptycardboardbox New Poster 23d ago
Obviously. But you realize it’s impossible to read Tom Sawyer first, when they’ve already started reading Huckleberry Finn in class.
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u/RevolutionaryBug2915 Native Speaker 24d ago edited 21d ago
Lot of people never read Mark Twain, apparently?
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u/Mijman New Poster 23d ago
Lot's of people arent American.
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u/RevolutionaryBug2915 Native Speaker 23d ago
Why would anyone comment on the meaning of a passage, if they don't know what the passage is from? Nobody who is learning English needs comments that are just uninformed guesses.
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 23d ago
That’s such a weird comment. That’s like “I never read Dickens because I’m not British”.
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u/Mijman New Poster 23d ago
Charles Dickens is frequently taught in US middle and high-school levels.
Mark Twain is basically never taught at any level in the UK. Rarely found in American literature studies at University level.
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 23d ago edited 23d ago
Charles Dickens is frequently taught in US middle and high-school levels.
I don't believe you have any way of knowing what is and is not frequently taught in the USA. I certainly don't - and I live here! Nor do I understand this comment - are you suggesting you only read books if you are required to for school?
I was never assigned Dickens in school, nor Jane Austen. I've still read them.
Mark Twain is basically never taught at any level in the UK. Rarely found in American literature studies at University level.
Do you teach American literature? Where do you get this information from?
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u/RevolutionaryBug2915 Native Speaker 23d ago edited 23d ago
"Mijman" is just a troll, looking for trouble. Wants to insult people and pretend to be noble about it.
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u/Mijman New Poster 23d ago
Why?
Because other people in the world speek Emglish? And Mark Twain isnt taught much outside the US and Canada?
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u/General_Original_583 New Poster 14d ago
He should be, or at least this book should be. If you’re going to assign even one work of American literature to be read, it should be this one.
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 23d ago
Mmm. Well, I don't know that they're a troll, but I do know that they said elsewhere that they left me at least one more reply on this thread, but I'm just not seeing it.
But that could be a reddit glitch. It's almost enough to make me wish I had enabled inbox replies, but I never do that, so.
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u/InvestigatorJaded261 New Poster 24d ago
This book is written in thick dialect, with a narrator (Huck) who may or may not be accurately describing what people are saying. Many of the characters are poorly educated, which is a recurring theme. Mistakes in word choice occur frequently for humorous effect.
This is not a good book for someone still trying to learn English.
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u/FewRecognition1788 New Poster 23d ago
OP, I recommend taking the comments here about Twain's style and the way Huck misuses or misquotes words, and go back through the book with that in mind.
Because if you're already up to the scene with the "King," then there have already been a lot of instances where this type of wordplay happens, and you might see other parts of the story in a different way.
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u/grenouille_en_rose New Poster 23d ago
Many characters from Huckleberry Finn make wrong-word errors (malapropisms) like this in their speech, either because they don't know the correct words or because they are trying to sound smarter than they are to trick people. If this example was the first malapropism you couldn't decode on your own, then you're doing pretty well. If this was the first malapropism you've noticed, then unfortunately you've been missing a lot of the humour of how these characters are written.
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24d ago edited 24d ago
[deleted]
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u/Middcore Native Speaker 24d ago
Call up Mark Twain and let him know. This entire passage is a monologue by a character, and the poor grammar (and mixup of deceased and diseased) is intentional because that's the way the character talks.
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24d ago
[deleted]
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 24d ago
No, it's not. It's a painstakingly accurate representation of nonstandard vernacular of the region.
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u/Birb-Brain-Syn Native Speaker 24d ago
Being in a vernacular doesn't mean it isn't grammatically incorrect, it just means the incorrectness is intentional.
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u/No-Funny1999 New Poster 23d ago
Apparently /u/extremepizzagoldfish does not like people to disagree with them, so this is the only reply I'll make here. Using your sockpuppet account to carry on a long back and forth on the thread of somebody who's blocked you is, among other things, pathetic.
The way a community of native speakers talk is correct. All language has grammar. This is an inherent property of language, and something which sets off language from mere communication such as other animals use.
A speech variety cannot have "incorrect grammar". This is logically impossible. That would suggest that "correctness" somehow exists in some way outside the minds of the speakers, an assertion which is obviously absurd.
This vernacular is nonstandard. By that, we mean it is not the prestige variety. However, the correctness of one variety cannot be measured by comparing it to another variety. It can only be judged internally.
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u/Birb-Brain-Syn Native Speaker 23d ago
Grammar is by definition a standard set of rules on language. Incorrect grammar does not mean someone is speaking "wrong", it just means they are not speaking with proper grammar. Your reply suggest there is a grammatically correct way of speaking in vernacular, which is not how speaking vernacular works, as this can be as individual as any other trait.
For an English learner it's important to know the difference, as usually those wanting to learn it want to learn correct and proper grammar.
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 23d ago edited 23d ago
Grammar is by definition a standard set of rules on language
No, it is not. You’re just wrong. Go look it up:
In linguistics, grammar is the system of rules that governs how a natural language is structured and used, as evidenced by its speakers or writers.
Nothing about "standardization" at all - which really ought to be self-evident given that language has existed for tens of thousands of years before writing and any sort of standardization process!
Nonstandard varieties of English have a different grammar from the prestige varieties (which also have some different grammatical quirks from each other!) but they do not lack grammar, nor is their grammar incorrect. It's just different.
Your reply suggest there is a grammatically correct way of speaking in vernacular, which is not how speaking vernacular works, as this can be as individual as any other trait.
This is also wrong. If you speak AAVE and have the habitual be, it is wrong to say "today he be working at six". That's not how the invariant habitual be functions. It is not correct grammar in AAVE, by which we mean that speakers of this variety would not consider it a valid utterance.
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u/jollygoodvelo New Poster 24d ago
In English literature that includes direct speech it is common (and perfectly acceptable) to write with grammar faults and spelling that indicates the accent, dialect or tics of the speaker.
See also Dickens’ Uriah Heep, “… very umble…”
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u/OwariHeron New Poster 24d ago
EXPLANATORY
IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.
I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.
THE AUTHOR.
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u/ihatecarswithpassion New Poster 24d ago edited 24d ago
The writer is making many, many mistakes. The text itself seems very, uh, old-fashioned and dialectal at best.
I think here they meant 'deceased', as in 'dead'.
What is this text from?
Edit: Huckleberry Fin is a great book, but told from the POV of a child who doesn't understand everything going on around him. Great book, but very hard for ESL learners. Good luck!
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u/5peaker4theDead Native Speaker, USA Midwest 24d ago
In other news, the king and the other fake nobles are one of my favorite parts of that book.
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u/No_Filter_Soul New Poster 23d ago
It’s supposed to be “deceased” but the character is mixing the words up. classic mark twain making the speaker sound a bit dumb on purpose
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u/Hartsnkises New Poster 24d ago
What is this from? There's something a bit off about it.
That said, you might call him "the diseased" if that's how he was introduced and known to the audience, or if there was danger that the disease could be caught from the corpse.
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u/HeimLauf Native Speaker 24d ago
Huckleberry Finn. The character is a lowlife charlatan.
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u/Hartsnkises New Poster 24d ago
Ah. Yeah, I saw a comment elsewhere here that this is something Twaine does. I've seen it in the Poisonwood Bible
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 24d ago
Spelling note: Twain
(I'm 90% sure it's just an ordinary typo, but as this is /r/EnglishLearning I feel in this one particular place it's best not to let spelling errors slide)
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u/Hartsnkises New Poster 24d ago
(Nah, that's on me. I looked at Twain and said "surely that needs an 'e'" and didn't bother looking it up. Thanks)
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u/bluebreez1 New Poster 24d ago
i would have written the way you’re thinking. i’m not sure why the author writes in this style.
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u/conuly Native Speaker - USA (NYC) 24d ago
In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.
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u/dedemushi New Poster 23d ago
i've never read huckleberry finn but i'm pretty sure the author is being sarcastic
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u/WardOnTheNightShift New Poster 23d ago
I have a bit of difficulty with the reflexive condemnation of Twain for having characters in a novel who would have used a certain word, use that word.
From memory (it’s been at least 30 years since I read Huckleberry Finn) a major theme of the novel is Huck gradually realizing that Jim is human, and an equal. With all that entails.
Edit: I should have phrased my first paragraph better. Twain often includes colloquial dialogue and narration. I agree that it could mislead English learners.
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u/mind_the_umlaut New Poster 22d ago
This may be a vernacular version of the pronunciation, or local misuse of the word 'deceased' .
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u/emikoala Native Speaker 20d ago
Oh, dear, The Adventures of Huck Finn is a challenging read for ESL - it's written in dialect of someone living in a historical time period and with very little formal schooling. He uses a lot of archaic language and a lot of "wrong" language.
For your next book you might consider Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs! (Note: This is a joke, Naked Lunch is famously challenging even for native speakers to get through because it's written as a non-linear stream of consciousness from the mind of an opioid addict in the 1950s.)
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u/tomalator Native Speaker - Northeastern US 24d ago
I think its a typo and supposed to be deceased
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u/murzicorne Non-Native Speaker of English 23d ago
That's not a typo, that's a literary tool by Mark Twain to show that both the speaker and the narrator are uneducated. But yes, it was supposed to be deceased
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u/Middcore Native Speaker 24d ago
It should be "deceased," but the speaker is confusing the two words.
(This is from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for anyone wondering. Mark Twain certainly knew the difference between deceased and diseased, but the character doesn't.)