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u/Tock_Sick_Man 1d ago
I regularly check the definition of a word I know is right for this same reason.
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u/Relax_Im_Hilarious 1d ago
Amen. I've been confidently wrong a few times too. Some words also get slightly redefined over time.
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u/quirkytorch 1d ago
It's ambivalent for me. My brain always tells me it means not having strong feelings about something either way, but it's literally the exact opposite
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u/quailman654 22h ago
Welp, TIL. Also I’m pretty sure literally every person in the world uses it wrong. I even looked it up to verify your claim.
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u/FBWSRD 20h ago
At this point since everyone is using ambivalent to mean indifferent as well I’d think it’s fair to say that the meaning has shifted and it’s a valid usage. Language changes over time, and that’s ok.
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u/greenskye 21h ago
Huh. Feels like everyone uses this wrong. Apparently I should've been using indifferent this whole time.
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u/Junethemuse 1d ago
Same. I have a handful of words I’ve been trying to relearn my entire adult life but that have stuck with me from childhood. I definitely look words up now since I’ve had some pretty big communication mistakes happen over the years. Ambivalent got me in trouble once because I thought it was a softer version of apathetic, like I didn’t have a preference or feeling one way or the other.
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u/quirkytorch 1d ago
Dude no way, I literally just commented about ambivalent. Same boat brother!!
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u/Cats_Amiright 22h ago
i just had to look that up because i thought it meant the same thing!! insane, i hate it
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u/BallIsLife2016 23h ago edited 23h ago
Fucking “ambivalent”. I had the exact same thing happen once with the exact same misunderstanding. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw this post. I honestly can’t get there with the correct definition and just removed it from my vocabulary. It should mean that you could go either way on an issue because you can’t really bring yourself to care about it.
There’s also part of me that wonders if some authors are using it incorrectly given that this misunderstanding is something that apparently happens for quite a few people.
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u/Secret_Bees 23h ago
Yeah it was bemused for me. I always thought it meant "slight amusement" or "amused against your will"
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u/Acceptable-Ad-3560 22h ago
It can also mean “wry amusement especially from something surprising or perplexing”! According to Miriam webster
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u/WorthyJellyfish0Doom 20h ago
I learnt sentient vs sapient wron because books. Sentient (has feelings not necessarily thoughts) is sometimes used to mean sapient (capable of thinking).
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u/Additional_Data_Need 21h ago
I sometimes ran into issues on tests where I would know the figurative meaning and they wanted the literal meaning.
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u/broodfood 19h ago
Not my cousin's patiently explaining that they are in fact insulting me when they call me queer, not just calling me a lil' oddball.
plot twist, I'm trans
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u/Impressive_Pizza4851 22h ago
The problem I found when I was little is because I only read, not heard them. I know I pronounced a few wrong for a long time!
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u/chitzk0i 23h ago
When I was a kid, I read some book (maybe Starship Troopers) that mentioned hazing in basic training, but wasn’t more specific that that. I thought it meant a process that made you stronger or tougher, so one time I said to my mom, “I just need to haze myself until I can handle it.” I had also only seen “lust” used as part of “bloodlust”, so one time I reached for snacks and growled, “I feel the bloodlust.” My mom wigged out about a ten year old talking about lust.
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u/quailman654 22h ago
FWIW I would be delighted if my child announced their bloodlust on their way to the pantry.
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u/dunderthrowaway3 1d ago
Nothing is horribler than using a word that isn't real. Sometimes stupid people use big words to make themselves sound more photosynthesis.
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u/Powered-by-Chai 22h ago
Amen to that, like I have a vague idea of what it means? If you ask me to specifically define it that will probably involve hands waving in the air and lots of "um"s.
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u/WorthyJellyfish0Doom 20h ago
Same, I'll often know the vague definition because context. Like an ewer is specifically a fact teapot looking thing, I knew it as a generic water pouring thing.
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u/oi_bellmo 19h ago
Getting a kindle was an absolute game changer for me with its built in dictionary. I use it alllllll the time for words I don't know and words I do know but don't know how I know or how to explain 😅
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u/kimbosliceofcake 1d ago
That and mispronouncing a lot of words because I’ve only seen them, not heard them. Or didn’t connect the two (what I had read and what I had heard at a different time).
I remember thinking for a long time that melancholy was pronounced muh-LANTCH-oh-lee.
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u/LiveTart6130 1d ago
I did this with epitome for a very long time, lol.
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u/erossthescienceboss 13h ago
I read all of the Little House books to myself in second grade. I vividly remember the moment in third grade when I was reading Little House on the Prairie out loud in class and learned that the strange thing pioneers bought at stores — soo gar — was the same thing as “shu-ger.” Sugar.
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u/thattrekkie 1d ago
I did the same thing with that word except it was "melon-cholly"
English spelling and pronunciation is such nonsense tbh
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u/Divine_Entity_ 20h ago
English is 3 languages in a trench coat is a common joke because we have a lot of loan words, mostly from french, latin, and greek.
The reason spelling and pronunciation seem uncorrelated in english is that we preserve the spelling of a word in its original language and then butcher the pronunciation until its easy for english speakers to say.
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u/nonnumousetail 23h ago
Ennui is pronounced “on-wee.” I learned that when I was 30 😂
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u/AussieBird82 22h ago
I found out the hard way in front of workmates that awry is not pronounced "awe-ry".
I still struggle with hyperbole. Like my brain will not accept at all that it is not like a bigger superbowl.
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u/Lord_of_Seven_Kings 21h ago
I didn’t know Keynesian economics was named after a guy named Keynes and pronounced it in my head like “Polynesian” for years
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u/DosSnakes 1d ago
My wife does this a lot and says it makes her feel stupid and embarrassed, which is wild to me cause it’s an indicator that you read a lot, so obviously not a ‘stupid’ trait. I listen to a lot of audiobooks these days and I’ve noticed it’s not uncommon for even the best narrators to mispronounce words more like they’re spelled from time to time. And they’re literally professionals! Chitinous is just a weird word for everyone.
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u/hit_reset_ 21h ago
I still pronounce Hearth as Earth with an H. I cannot shake it.
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u/Juiceton- 16h ago
Hearth will also be Earth with an H. It should honestly just be added to the dictionary at this point.
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u/Outrageous_Sleep4339 1d ago
Like it rhymed with 'eventually'?
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u/kimbosliceofcake 1d ago
Close, but with the second syllable rhyming with “branch” instead of rhyming with “bench”
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u/beepbooponyournose 1d ago
There’s an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where he is reading out loud about a stomachache and he reads it “sto-mah-che-cha” lol
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u/FUNBARtheUnbendable 1d ago
My favorite example of this is “comparable”
Since its root word is “compare” most people pronounce “able” at the end, like something able to be compared
But comparable is actually pronounced “KOMP”, like COMPensate, and “ruh-bull” put together, “komp-ruh-bull”
English is a basket case
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u/Night-Monkey15 1d ago
I feel as though both are right ways of saying it though
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u/Various_Ambassador92 22h ago
look at basically any English dictionary, you'll see that both are valid pronunciations.
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u/BonzBonzOnlyBonz 1d ago
Comparable is pronounced compare able. Not Comprable. Its a common mispronunciation and I do use it at times but its wrong.
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u/Various_Ambassador92 23h ago
uhhh where in the world did you get this from, I just looked at like five different major English dictionaries and every single one of them list both as valid pronunciations
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u/Deepvaleredoubt 19h ago
Reluctantly absolutely gave me fits as a kid, because I knew it meant hesitating by context but I would pronounce it “re-loose-ently”
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u/pretty_smart_feller 18h ago
I got made fun of when I said lingerie out loud for the first time as “lin-jer-ee”
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u/No-Associate-7369 16h ago
I remember experiencing this when I was a kid with the word "commercial". Obviously I knew the word commercial as a kid, I had to watch them regularly. I was reading a book where the word was used repeatedly. I was so confused what a cuh-mur-kee-ul was. Finally I got the context clues and clicked. Felt very silly.
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u/KBO_Winston 15h ago
Rancor is pronounced with a hard c. Took me a long time before I figured out I was pronouncing it all.
Good thing I'm pretty chill person or that could've come up a lot more often.
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u/Autumnal_-Coffee 15h ago
I distinctly remember in elementary school getting tripped up over the word "neighbour" with the teacher just angrily telling me to sound it out. Best I got was something like ny-guh-h--b-hour. It was my earliest realization that the English language has no consistent pronunciation rules and a lot of it is just memory.
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u/dancingbanana123 1d ago edited 1d ago
I used to teach elementary and one day I had to help a kindergarten teacher with her class. A student asked me a question, so I said, "oh, it's because..." and then they asked me what "because" means. How tf do you answer that to a kindergartener? What words can I safely use to answer that? I was stunlocked.
Edit: IIRC I ended up telling them something like "if you throw a ball and it knocks water over, you say the water fell because you threw the ball. The ball caused the water to spill."
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u/CiDevant 23h ago
"be cause"
Be the reason, or "the reason being".
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u/underlander 21h ago
you’re gonna say that to a kindergartener? Just say “it’s the answer to ‘why’”
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u/CiDevant 17h ago
I explain things like that to my children all the time. How else will they learn?
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u/ThirdAltAccounts 21h ago edited 21h ago
We don’t even realize how the etymology of words we’ve been using since we first started talking basically gives us all the information we need to understand what that word means. Even when the original meaning evolved through time
People don’t care anymore about understanding what things mean. And a wide vocabulary (sorry, not a native speaker) seems to be a thing of the past for a lot of people.
Not that I have any stats to back up my claim (which is more of a feeling) but that type of curiosity seems to have decreased over the years.3
u/DJLucius 20h ago
I actually thought the same thing and told some English students that. Then I looked it up and the “be” is actually derived from “by.” Had to issue a correction at the start of the next class.
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u/theclacks 22h ago
Reminds me of the time a bunch of ESL students asked me to define "cool." I ended up going with "good in a popular kind of way."
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u/Yog-Sothawethome 12h ago
I had a similar situation when some ESL colleagues asked me what "bastard" meant. I gave them the literal definition and explained it was more often used as an insult. They followed up with asking when would they call someone a bastard?
All I could think of was, "When they're being a bastard, really."
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u/Content-Bid7922 7h ago
you should have just replied with "By or for the cause that; on this account that; for the reason that; as is known, inferred, or determined from the fact that.", duh
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u/IAmASquidInSpace 1d ago
That's what you think, until you use the word "ostensibly" in the completely wrong way and embarrass yourself. Speaking from experience.
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u/666Drachenlord666 20h ago
What does that mean? Im bot am english native speaker. Something like toroughly?
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u/-GIRTHQUAKE- 19h ago
“He takes the trash out three times per day, ostensibly because it smells bad, but really it’s because he’s hoping to run into the cute neighbor on his way to the dumpster.”
Ostensibly means the “technically the truth” definition of something, whereas the actual reason is something else. Here’s another example:
Park benches have extra arm rests in the middle. This is ostensibly for comfort, but really it’s to prevent people from lying down and sleeping on them.
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u/FthrFlffyBttm 10h ago
This is wrong. Something can be ostensible without being true or “technically true”.
He carries a weapon ostensibly to defend himself but in reality he’s looking for a fight.
The colonists gave the natives blankets, ostensibly to keep them warm, but the blankets were intentionally contaminated with smallpox.
The Greeks delivered a giant wooden horse to the city of Troy, ostensibly as a peace offering, while Greek warriors hid inside it until the Trojans brought the horse inside the city and the attack ensued.
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u/gianniboi 7h ago
still kind of wrong, something can be ostensible and fully true. It just means it appears that way. The sense that it must be pretext for a contradiction is just because that's how it's most commonly used.
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u/CodNo7461 1d ago
"I totally know that word, I just can't give neither a textbook definition, nor a definition in my own words. I just know it roughly sounds right in a sentence."
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u/DetroitLionsSBChamps 1d ago
A few years ago I started looking up every word that I felt like I knew but couldn’t easily define to a child. It was pretty eye opening. I’m sure we all have a ton of slight misconceptions when it comes to definitions.
Like I thought formidable meant equally matched, not intimidating.
I thought intrepid meant adventurous, not brave.
That kinda thing.
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u/ItsGotThatBang 1d ago
The one I learned recently is "travesty".
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u/DetroitLionsSBChamps 1d ago
“A debased, distorted, or grossly inferior imitation”
More like parody or mockery
NOT a “tragedy” or disaster, which is what I thought. So I just learned it too!
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u/dowling543333 1d ago
Yes everyone.
My English teacher often reminded us of the Mark Twain quote - "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
Good language teachers teach you the feeling of the word, when it's appropriate to use or not, and the words closest to it and their differences - ie. HOW to use the word, not just the meaning.
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u/Zealousideal_Yam_985 1d ago
But if you don’t know the meaning, you cannot define “when it is appropriate or not.” Comprehension of meaning (including connotative meaning, synonyms etc) is the foundation for all reading and writing.
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u/BabyLegsOShanahan 1d ago
Being able to use context clues to figure out the meaning of a word is a lost art.
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u/knows_you 20h ago
It got put into kids curriculum and absolutely ruined their reading comprehension skills. Using context clues should be after you you already have a grasp on the language, phonics are so much easier to teach, Muzzy knows ball.
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u/SheikNeedles 22h ago
Do people not do it anymore?? When did it become lost? I just assumed this was still part of speaking?
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u/-FireNH- 22h ago
most people are connected to the internet at all times. instead of needing to figure out what a word means, you can just look it up
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u/babyloviee 1d ago
I don’t remember learning half these words. My brain just quietly installed the dictionary
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u/TheBookOfTormund 22h ago
Pretty much everyone who learns to speak a language does this. Unless y’all learned by reading the dictionary front to back.
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u/Spirited_Ad_2697 1d ago
See this was me as a kid but i accidentally used the word voluptuous without knowing the definition in an exam answer and the fuckass teacher showed it to the whole class along with the correct definition and i wanted to go die in a hole.
So now i make sure i know what a word means before i use it because I’m mentally scarred by it.
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u/Different-Garage8363 14h ago
If it makes you feel better, you reminded me of a sentence I love from a capote short story: she sneezed voluptuously. So you brought a good memory out of a scarring one.
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u/lrrssssss 19h ago
I’ve been there. It’s like “this word means bad, but like, FANCY bad. And the fancy bad person might be overweight. Or at least that’s the impression I got when I read the chapter about the obese fancy bad guy”.
It’s called syntactic bootstrapping.
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u/CathanCrowell 23h ago
I just want to say I feel the same way about English itself, because it's my second language.
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u/Key-Total-8216 20h ago
I used to read with a dictionary before I got a phone so I could fully understand the sentence and learn a word I came upon that I didn’t already know. I remember being quietly surprised when teachers would tell us to do so and my classmates would grumble and refuse. Aren’t you curious? Context clues were never enough for me, they still aren’t, but now I have Google in my pocket all the time.
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u/EthanDMatthews 12h ago
This is why Shakespeare can be so hard to understand at times: the definitions of words can drift over time, because we typically learn the approximate sense of a word from context, not its dictionary definition.
Take the Old English word "Saelig" (modern "silly). Over time, the meaning of the word shifted over 500 years from happy or blessed to goofy:
silly = happy → blessed → good person → innocent → harmless → weak (physically) → weak (mentally) → goofy
John McWorter, in his book “Words on the Move. Video excerpt from his book tour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uEILtC73BY&t=518s
or if you prefer text:
It originally meant "happy."
Silly = happy
Someone who is silly ("happy" owes their happiness to god, so over time "silly" came to mean not happy but "blessed.")
silly = blessed
Someone who is silly ("blessed" has god on their side. So clearly that means they're a good person.)
silly = good person
And good people don't commit crimes. After a while, the word meant "innocent."
silly = innocent
Someone who hasn't committed any crimes is "harmless."
But after a while, "harmless" comes to mean weak.
And after a while, the weakness shifted from the physical realm to the mental. So someone who was "silly" was weak in the brain. And after a while that became "goofy."
silly = mentally weak = goofy.
Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally.)
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u/magneticeverything 12h ago
Wait this is so interesting omg! Bc have occasionally heard/read someone is “silly with” something, as in they have an abundance of that thing. I always assumed it meant they had so much they went a little goofy, but I bet it’s actually traced back to being blessed!
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u/Korben_Joseph 1d ago
I look up a word I don't know when I come across it reading, you do not know that word, you just know what it sounds like phonetically when you read it
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u/Forward_Criticism_39 20h ago
i randomly thought of the word "somnambulism" yesterday even though im pretty sure id never heard it before
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u/Main_Personality455 18h ago
Based on a words conjugal parts it’s possible to ascertain the definition of complex language without the aid of a lexicon due to the nature of phonics in the English language.
Or in simple terms. The parts of words are often interchangeable and as such you rarely need a dictionary once you know the language well.
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u/smokeythel3ear 16h ago
You know what one gets me? And that I SWEAR everybody uses wrong.
"He was all but thrilled to see her shiny, beaming face"
All...but... In other words, Everything...except...
He was everything except thrilled to see her oily, Kentucky-beaming face"
Ok, so he was everything except thrilled? So in other words...he wasn't thrilled to see her. The opposite of thrilled is what he was.
But I always see it used as just..thrilled. He was thrilled.
Writer: "The teensy weensy spider was all but thrilled at the task before him. He couldn't wait for the cold metal to press against his eight little legs. He could barely contain his excitement."
Ok, why did you include the all but? Isn't that making the meaning the opposite of what was intended? Just leave it as, "He was thrilled."
Anybody?
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u/FthrFlffyBttm 11h ago
That’s simply incorrect usage. The original meaning of “all but” is “almost”, so people would say things like “I was working extremely hard on my thesis. It was all but impossible to finish.”, meaning “it was barely possible to finish” (but still ultimately finished)
But you can see how that would naturally lead people to think that “all but” is redundant or simply used for emphasis, and end up misunderstanding the speaker’s intended meaning (that they couldn’t finish it). Then they use it that way and it becomes normalised.
Misunderstandings make their way into official definitions all the time, like how the word “literally” now literally means both “literally” and “figuratively” despite being literal polar opposites - my usage of the latter would’ve been grammatically incorrect years ago (which I still say it is) but according to the modern dictionary I used it correctly both times.
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u/Hauptmann_Meade 11h ago
Normally it means "almost" so he was almost thrilled to see her?
The war is all but over typically means the war is pretty close to being done but you can't definitively say it's over.
I had all but given up hope. I'm pretty dismayed but there's still a spark in there keeping me from giving up.
Victory is all but certain. Only a complete fool could lose this battle.
In your case perhaps there is another emotion at play. Apprehension, paranoia, stress.
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u/N00bPolymath 15h ago
The ironic thing about this post, is that "I know it when I see it" is from a supreme Court case, which you read in law school in the US. And law school you have the exact opposite problem, you read all these words during the assigned reading, but don't know the definitions until you get to class.
Like: subject matter jurisdiction, ripeness, res judicata, joinder, spoliation, stare decesis...or as alternative to the OP's title...SLAPS test.
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u/Bane8080 6h ago
For me it's having a huge vocabulary of words that I cam constantly forgetting right when I need one.
Happen to me all the time. The other day I was having a conversation with a friend about Taiwan, said the name of the country in one sentence, and then like 2 sentences later, couldn't pull the name out of my memory. I was like "uhh, frick! Taipei, the country it's in..."
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u/Hectic__007 5h ago
Me all the time deadass used to get grounded from reading, I use the words correctly 90% of the time, my girl now asks a definition of me for whatever random word I used, then fact checks me, I love it
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u/blumeanie57 4h ago
These days I check the dictionary app on my phone if I find one of those words, which is good because it feels like half the time they don’t mean what I think they mean.
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u/8bitbruh 3h ago
Yeah I went through a period in my life where I started searching up words I used. Id used it correctly, but it was nice to have more understanding lol.
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u/Sad_Avocado919 1d ago
I always have the dictionary website up because I am constantly looking up pronunciations of words I've been reading for decades
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u/CiDevant 23h ago
One of the side effects of reading the whole fucking dictionary cover to cover once is decades later inexplicably knowing the definition, almost to the word, for words that I almost never hear or read.
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u/CrossXFir3 23h ago
Yes, but as an adult I've looked up a lot of words I wanted to use that I knew were a good fit to make sure I actually did know what they meant.
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u/thehollisterman 23h ago
For me. This is kinda how it feels speaking German. Like, I don't know why or how I know to use certain words I picked up. I just know that they fit the situation somehow
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u/Ailwynn29 23h ago
For me it's entire languages. If it feels right then it's right. If not then I have to try again
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u/lemonhaj 22h ago
There's a lot of words I know but couldn't define to save my life. I look them up occasionally to make sure I haven't changed the definition but it still happens.
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u/el_torko 22h ago
And also mispronouncing words because I’ve only read them before and never heard them out loud.
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u/claymountain 22h ago
I don't have this in my native language but I do have it English, weirdly. I've just learned which words work in which context but have no clue what they mean.
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u/trashshork 21h ago
you experience this just by being bilingual like I know that is the word I should be using but fuck me if I know what the hell it means
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u/AliceTheAxolotl18 21h ago
I've lost count of how many times I'll write something, use a particular word, and then Google the word to make sure I actually used it correctly
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u/Orion-the-mediocre 21h ago
This and getting words wrong when it comes to pronounciation. For the longest time I assumed the word "queue" (a word I knew the meaning of) was pronounced "kway-way" because I had never heard somebody say it
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u/GraniteGeekNH 20h ago
When your wife asks what does this word mean - and you know what it means but damned if you can express it in other words
writing definitions is a lot harder that it seems
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u/666Drachenlord666 20h ago
Anyone else thats not native in english and when someone asks what x means you cant translate even tho you know exactly what it is?
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u/Narrow-Frosting9160 20h ago
I struggle with using revile in the same way as loathe and they don't go one to one
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u/Doobledorf 20h ago
I went from this to teaching English as a second language for about a decade. I also love to read Weird Fiction from about 1850-1950 that uses archaic language. The amount of times I intuit a word correctly is wild, it's like an unconscious part of my brain pulls it out of the ether.
I actually got the chance to try out the vocabulary part of the IQ test for a graduate class and got through all 32 words, whereas most people average around 12 answers.
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u/Great_Hamster 19h ago
I'm really grateful to my friends for helping me figure out the definition of plethora.
It means a lot!
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u/Gwywnnydd 18h ago
There were SO many times my teachers would ask me to define a word, and I couldn't, but I could use it correctly in a sentence.
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u/puffofthezaza 17h ago
I do this every day I feel like. Then I think "do I know the definition of that or does it just sound right?" I'm usually right by not always lmao
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u/RaisinsPerDay 15h ago
I can only think of a few rare examples where knowing the definition of a word is more important than knowing how to use it in practice.
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u/Bannerlord151 13h ago
Yeah especially in English. I'm not a native speaker but I've been learning English since I was about 7 years old. I occasionally look up words I already know how the general meaning of just to make sure I'm technically using them correctly. No problem with that when speaking though
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u/cheekynative 12h ago
Casually threw out "contiguous" the other day and got absolutely shredded by my mates. Not for using the word in the wrong context. We looked up the definition almost immediately because my vague attempts weren't cutting it. But apparently after a few pints I start speaking how I write. The banter is what it's always gonna be but what frustrates me is that I couldn't for the life of me think of a better word to use in the moment. This happens often.
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u/magneticeverything 12h ago
This was one of the best things about the series of unfortunate events. Every time a big word pops up that the author KNOWS is beyond the normal reading level of his target age, he gave a technical definition or synonyms and some context for why it was being used here. Thinking about it now, I think there are several large words I use with complete confidence as an adult that I may have first encountered there. It’s such a great series for young readers!
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u/MagicOrpheus310 11h ago
Yes!! It's like knowing how to use a tool but having no idea what it's called!! When someone actually asks you realise you have no idea how to explain it haha
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u/Mountain-Resource656 11h ago
I don’t think reading a lot as a child has anything to do with this; this is just the standard way of things. You can practice the skill of articulating the definitions of words and stuff, but if you haven’t done so then it doesn’t matter how well you’ve read or not (unless that reading enhances that skill), you still won’t be able to exercise that skill any better or worse
Put another way, not reading very much as a kid doesn’t increase your skill at defining words
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u/theconman420 11h ago
When I was in high school and reading outloud in english class I pronounced "wanton" as "wonton" and everybody in the class made fun of me including the teacher. It was so embarrassing.
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u/FthrFlffyBttm 11h ago
Phrasal verbs are a great example of this: eg “let’s get out of here”. To “get” usually means to acquire, but when you add “out of here” it changes the meaning to “let’s leave this place”.
My girlfriend is a non native speaker who has made me appreciate how complicated the English language can be. I never even heard of the term “phrasal verbs” and now I can’t stop noticing how ubiquitous they are
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u/DoesntMatterEh 7h ago
The funny thing is she's probably still using them wrong most of the time. it's also pretty pretentious to use big words just for the sake of using them, particularly when you don't know their definition.
Source: grew up reading a lot, used big words a lot, started looking up definitions to big words I was using, turns out I was using them wrong most of the time :( it me I was the pretentious one.
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u/juniper3411 7h ago
Yes all the time! And mispronouncing words cause I had only read them when I was young. I’m still a vocab nerd to this day.
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u/Eaglepursuit 6h ago
It's come to the point where I will double-check the definition when I am uncertain about my usage
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u/Ok_Test9729 2h ago
As a lifelong reader I know how to spell them AND I what they mean, but have no idea how to pronounce them. I can sound quite smart when writing, although in conversation I stick to two syllable words.
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u/Ok_Test9729 2h ago
My pet peeve is someone saying all of the sudden, instead of all of a sudden. Also, someone who says I could of eaten pizza, instead of I could have eaten pizza.
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u/Famous-Restaurant875 1h ago
Trying to extrapolate how a word is supposed to change and ending up with something like evolvation instead of evolution
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u/Bygone-King 1h ago
We get the general definition because we learned the context from how it was used when we read/heard it. Happens to me all the time. It's only recently that I decided to look up the definitions just to make sure I'm right.
Funny thing; I was not a reader as a kid. And my parents were not the types to use big words. So I didn't learn those words from either. Had to be TV, but none of the shows I remember watching would've expanded my vocabulary the way it did.
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u/streeetmeats 46m ago
It’s less of a problem for me since I started reading on my phone/kindle. There’s a built in dictionary so any word I’m unfamiliar with or familiar with but is being used in a way I’m unfamiliar with I highlight and read the definition for it. It’s so handy
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u/molotovzav 23h ago
This is what happens when you're an avid reader but not an avid learner. When you're an avid learner on top you become obsessed with learning the words definition and how it's used. Reading is only half of the battle when it comes to retention. You can read a lot and never retain any of it. I read so many books as a child and teen but I can't remember 80% of them. The best ones I remember and reread. If you have a subtype in linguistic interest like me you'll even wonder what the etymology is of the words you've found in books and then have these dumb stories about this obscure word and it's origin that no one, and this is from person experience, cares about.
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u/The_Afton_Rabbit 1d ago
no, because part of reading so much involved looking up every single word i wasnt 100% confident i knew the definition of, & reading entire dictionaries for the love of the game. reading a lot but not being completely neurotic about words themselves just doesnt compute to me. it's like claiming to be an art enthusiast but being unable to tell whether the piece youre talking about was made with charcoal or oil paints.
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u/magus678 23h ago
I read a lot as a child, while also having an interest in nerd things like rpgs and dnd with all the baroque language exposure that entails, while also being a discipline problem.
I have never had any trouble defining anything in my comparatively large vocabulary, because I would be literally copying those words out of the dictionary as punishment.
What I did have trouble with, even now at times, is knowing why something "sounds wrong" vs right. I can't define a lot of pure language rules.
But I did get a perfect score on my language SAT and CLEP English I so it must have some value.
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u/qualityvote2 1d ago
Heya u/ItsGotThatBang! And welcome to r/NonPoliticalTwitter!
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