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re: What Has Happened to Everybody's Vocabulary and Diction?
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:15 pm to Paul Allen
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:15 pm to Paul Allen
quote:
Perhaps you should've used lexicon or vernacular in place of the word vocabulary?
I didn't claim to have some kind of huge vocabulary, though.
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:15 pm to TigerFanInSouthland
people now days just ain't got none of that fancy book learnin
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:17 pm to TigerFanInSouthland
If you read handwritten letters of the most educated folks today, they'd be similar.
You've got to remember the context of what you're reading. Illiteracy rates were 20+% back then. Today, that same 20% are updating their status on Facebook and Twitter 5 times a day.
You've got to remember the context of what you're reading. Illiteracy rates were 20+% back then. Today, that same 20% are updating their status on Facebook and Twitter 5 times a day.
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:18 pm to TigerFanInSouthland
Well I'll just submit this thought. He was a very smart man who obviously played a prominent role in history. I think in 150 years we'll likely still remember speeches from presidents, famous inventors, etc. and they will sound eloquent. People today on average have much higher educations. Yet people won't study "OMG totes adorbs new baby" Facebook posts in decades to come
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:18 pm to TigerFanInSouthland
quote:
WHEN, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's GOD entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.
I didn't provide the whole text because I'm not sure 75% of the OT is capable of reading that many words in one sitting, you get the gist. Nobody writes like that anymore, save novelists.
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:19 pm to TigerFanInSouthland
Bc nobody wants to read that shite.
There's a whole bunch of filler and fluff words in that text when none, or very little, is needed. People are just more direct in what they have to say.
There's a whole bunch of filler and fluff words in that text when none, or very little, is needed. People are just more direct in what they have to say.
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:19 pm to TigerFanInSouthland
I blame Dave lsu 89
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:21 pm to Aristo
quote:
I blame texting
And those Nokia phones before smart phones.
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:23 pm to brass2mouth
quote:
Bc nobody wants to read that shite.
Doubt it. The way they wrote back then fascinates me.
quote:
There's a whole bunch of filler and fluff words in that text when none, or very little, is needed. People are just more direct in what they have to say.
So you're telling me that the Declaration of Independence would be better off without that language? Highly doubt it.
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:24 pm to jimbeam
Right. He's comparing one of the most skilled orators in the history of the country to your average Joe today and then using it an example of how language has declined. No. Abe Lincoln was spectacular, and the people of his time seemed dumb compared to him too.
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:25 pm to Peazey
Exactly. The average American was a farmer that spoke nothing like that. It's just we don't have books and speeches from them to remember.
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:27 pm to jimbeam
quote:
Exactly. The average American was a farmer that spoke nothing like that. It's just we don't have books and speeches from them to remember.
The average farmer couldn't read and write at all. I'd say our vocabulary and diction has improved dramatically.
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:28 pm to Paul Allen
quote:
Perhaps you should've used lexicon or vernacular in place of the word vocabulary?
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:31 pm to TigerFanInSouthland
quote:
Nobody writes like that anymore, save novelists.
Other educated, contemporary people do write incredibly complex and interesting things. But yes, if you look only at the most skilled and educated people from one era and exclude the most skilled and educated people from another then the most skilled and educated people will have more sophisticated and eloquent writing.
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:36 pm to slackster
quote:
The average farmer couldn't read and write at all. I'd say our vocabulary and diction has improved dramatically.
You're making my point. If the average person now is more educated, why don't we speak more eloquently?
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:38 pm to TigerFanInSouthland
quote:
how many people do you know would be able to write like this?
How many people do you know who would be able to write like this?
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:44 pm to TigerFanInSouthland
quote:ive never spoken to from anyone that lived in the 1860s so how would I know what they speak like?
You're making my point. If the average person now is more educated, why don't we speak more eloquently?
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:44 pm to TigerFanInSouthland
People are impressed how well I write after meeting me. Is that good?
Posted on 4/17/17 at 7:57 pm to Hammertime
quote:
People are impressed how well I write after meeting me.
Doubt it.
This post was edited on 4/17/17 at 7:58 pm
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