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Honestly, to me it makes complete sense in context. I'm sorry you were confused. It is funny that in your example of "using big words to try to sound smart,"
by greeneggs 9y ago
Honestly, to me it makes complete sense in context. I'm sorry you were confused.
It is funny that in your example of "using big words to try to sound smart," the biggest word used is "know-nothingism."
But seriously, is it bad that a non-native speaker who is comfortable reading CNN has trouble with the New Yorker? I'd never heard the too-many-big-words criticism of the New Yorker before, but CNN is certainly the direct opposite.
- cholantesh 9y agoAnd 'know-nothingism' has a specific historical meaning, one that makes perfect sense in this context. >is it bad that a non-native speaker who is comfortable reading CNN has trouble with the New Yorker Not especially - they have different audiences: CNN targets a wide demographic and the NYer targets older, affluent liberals, who tend to have advanced levels of education. And I'd argue that even their readership might find some of the stylistic choices made in the NYer annoying - eg: spelling out numerical amounts rather than using Arabic numbers.