I didn't know that happened often with adults. In school and college you would get weird looks or mocked for showing anything other than the usual vernacular. I normally never encounter that attitude with people over 30. It seems more status quo.
You figure kids who have that opinion become adults with similar opinions.
So are people illiterate because of poor education or because they're simply stupid? Perhaps both?
Many factors, including those. The one annoying me most lately is the villification of intelligence. I work with many people who think reading is "gay," a symptom of weakness. Having anything other than a rudimentary vocabulary is seen as socially unacceptable. I was openly mocked by an employee last week for using the word "capricious."
I didn't know that happened often with adults. In school and college you would get weird looks or mocked for showing anything other than the usual vernacular. I normally never encounter that attitude with people over 30. It seems more status quo.
I used to date a guy in high school who would get mad at me/make fun of me whenever I used big words. He acted like it just wasn't cool and that I embarrassed him by being nerdy, but I think he really just didn't know what the words meant in the first place. Needless to say, that didn't last long. (Why did I ever date such a guy? I just use the excuse that I was on drugs the whole time).
I would just publicly shame people who reacted like that to big words. "Seriously? You have never heard this word before? You seriously don't know what 'excavate' means? How stupid ARE you?"
They stopped having that reaction pretty fast. Once people realized that I could combine vituperative words faster and more effectively than they could, they pretty much stopped trying. Win for the smart people.
I remember an incident when I was in the lunch line talking to a friend and I used the word "purportedly" and a girl that was not at all involved in the conversation turned around and said "God, K.T.! Can't you just use regular words?!" I turned around and replied "Can't you learn to speak the English language?"
That girl now works at Wal-Mart* as a checkout girl and has tanned herself so much that she changed races. *Working at Wal-Mart in and of itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in this context a winner is me.
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They stopped having that reaction pretty fast. Once people realized that I could combine vituperative words faster and more effectively than they could, they pretty much stopped trying. Win for the smart people.
That girl now works at Wal-Mart* as a checkout girl and has tanned herself so much that she changed races.
*Working at Wal-Mart in and of itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in this context a winner is me.