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Try, say, Google ngram. Would you say that, for example, “disharmonious” is a rare word? Graph them together. Pulchritude is not even moderately rare.
by leephillips 6y ago
Try, say, Google ngram. Would you say that, for example, “disharmonious” is a rare word? Graph them together. Pulchritude is not even moderately rare.
- grumple 6y agoI’m not sure what you’re trying to say here; pulchritude twice as rare as disharmonious, which is relatively rare. It’s an order of magnitude rarer than effervescent, as an example, which is a word I would consider uncommon but in most people’s vocabularies. And given how much more common pulchritude is - surely physical beauty is one of the most common subjects in any language - while disharmony and effervescence are more complex and rarer in practice, I think it speaks to how little the word is used. Its synonym, beauty, is used 2000x as often.
- leephillips 6y agoExcept that pulchritude beats disharmonious for over a hundred years. And even now, it’s half as common as disharmonious, which is a commonplace word. But if you think that a word like “disharmonious” is in any sense rare, then I don’t think I can convince you with data.
- lukeschlather 6y agoWhen compared to "harmony" usage of the other words is basically zero. Harmony is a common word, and it is the root which makes "disharmonious" easy to understand despite its extreme rarity. Even "disharmony" is far more common than "disharmonious."
- zhangeru 6y agoDisharmonious just seems common because it sounds similar to a word we're familiar with. Most times I can recall, a writer would craft a sentence using the word 'disharmony' instead, which is many times more common than either. What led you to pick disharmonious as a comparison point, anyway?
- dorkwood 6y agoI agree. I think if you're going to use "disharmonious" as your benchmark, you should be comparing it with "pulchritudinous" instead.
- harrygeez 6y agoProbably learned it while prepping for their SATs