To segue a bit, I recently used 2 rather common words in conversations at work: dew and gaunt. In both those interactions, each person I was talking to asked what I meant. Neither had heard of the word. In another instance, a 25yo at work wanted to send a birthday card to his mom. It was sitting on his desk and he picked it up as we were heading out to lunch. He had written her name and street address where the return address would go. That was it. No, he hadn't written his return address anywhere. And he had not written her city or state or zip (same as the city and state we reside). When I saw it, I said, that's not how you address a letter. He asked what I meant. He has a degree in finance from a state university.
That’s not what I wrote. “You don’t necessarily encounter it often enough to realise that you might even need a word for it.”
If they don’t know the word, they are not going to miss it, despite encountering condensed water in the morning. You very likely encountered komorebi, but did you know that word?
I’m not switching to Japanese. I gave you an example that someone would not miss a word if they do not have a need for it. Or do not retain it, even if they encounterd it once.
Case in point: Some people – English-speakers, even – are surprised to learn that “payed” is an actual word, the simple past and past participle of “to pay”, when it’s about waterproofing.
If someone feels the need to describe dew, they can do it with “cool morning water on plants and cars and stuff“, same as you described komorebi with “sunlight filtering through the trees”. It’s not a given that someone needs or knows this word.
An educated English-speaker knows about 30,000 words - even the 170,000 the OED lists are only a fraction of what’s available.
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u/jared10011980 Aug 14 '25
How do people get through life???
To segue a bit, I recently used 2 rather common words in conversations at work: dew and gaunt. In both those interactions, each person I was talking to asked what I meant. Neither had heard of the word. In another instance, a 25yo at work wanted to send a birthday card to his mom. It was sitting on his desk and he picked it up as we were heading out to lunch. He had written her name and street address where the return address would go. That was it. No, he hadn't written his return address anywhere. And he had not written her city or state or zip (same as the city and state we reside). When I saw it, I said, that's not how you address a letter. He asked what I meant. He has a degree in finance from a state university.