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I (native English speaker) have noticed this a lot. The example that I remember most vividly is receiving advice while trying to cook food on a barbecue: A Port

• tcgv 5y ago
  That's interesting. I'm a portuguese language native, and I can relate, but not because we talk like this in portuguese: > "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue" That would be really formal over here too, the kind of wording that I'd expect in a grilling manual explaining how to use it, but not at a barbecue. I can relate because sometimes I find myself speaking like that when talking to english counterparts, but mostly because when I'm "translating" my thoughts into sentences I have to choose between a group of words of similar meaning, and due to my inexperience, I often choose a less "popular" one. EDIT: After reflecting on this a bit more I also believe I often sound formal when speaking english because it's easier to use more/fancier words for the sake of not being misunderstood than it's to come up with a short, direct sentence that transmits my message in a clear way. It's like adding redundancy to the message for reducing the risk of transmitting unintentional errors ;)
  • chris_j 5y ago
    > That's interesting. I'm a portuguese language native, and I can relate, but not because we talk like this in portuguese: The chap in question was from Portugal. If I understand correctly from your website, you're from Brazil, right? Is there any difference between how that word would be used in Brazilian vs European Portuguese?
    • ORioN63 5y ago
      I'm from Portugal. I'm not aware of any difference regarding that word in particular, but tbh I wouldn't know. I'm always surprised with some of the differences I find from time to time. I can tell you though, that using the word "periferia" is actually common in some place (although a bit rare in most). It's mostly used as a synonym for 'around the borders'. The example you've mentioned: "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue", actually seems perfectly fine. It seems a little bit over-detailed, I guess that a bit context-dependent but I wouldn't bat an eye to the equivalent of "move them to the periphery". From what I recall 'periferia' is also commonly used in TV news.
      • kelnos 5y ago
        In case it wasn't clear (I don't think anyone has mentioned this, but maybe I missed it), it's not that "periphery" is overly-detailed, it's just an overly-formal, uncommon word. I think the more common phrase would be "move the burgers to the side of the barbecue". "Edge" might also be used too, which is probably a little clearer.
    • tcgv 5y ago
      That's right, I'm from Brazil! The meaning is the same, both in Brazil and in Portugal. As a curiosity the two countries (along with others) are part of the Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990 [1] whose purpose was to create a unified orthography for the Portuguese language, to be used by all the countries that have Portuguese as their official language. Nonetheless there is a lot of differences in usage, mostly regarding the "popular" vocabulary. Some heavily used words in one country are less frequently used in the other. There's also a noticeable difference in the accent. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Language_Orthographic_Agreement_of_1990 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Language_Orthograph...
      • myohmy 5y ago
        Honestly we need the same for English.
        • pessimizer 5y ago
          No, our orthography is terrible. We should let it slip towards rationality in any of the tiny ways it tries.
        • henvic 5y ago
          No. Just let the language naturally evolve. This "agreement" was an awful thing forced down by political forces. Context: I'm Brazilian and during high school I studied Portuguese "one official version behind". It had more rules, but the language itself was way nicer, and people used to write more close to it, than nowadays. It's better to have a few mistakes due to some archaic rules than to force everything to be sterile and complicate how you pronounce things IMHO Just let people evolve the language naturally instead...
  • jozvolskyef 5y ago
    I can also relate and my native language, Czech, is in the Slavic family. GP's friend probably used the word periphery because they knew it's common to the two languages, unlike the hypothetical Portuguese synonym. This applies to many words of Greek and Latinate origin. Their frequency is low in most languages, but they are understood in many languages. I find it sad that Brits are peer-pressured into giving up this aspect of their language due to perceived elitism. These 'elitist' words facilitate understanding across the various European languages.
  • StavrosK 5y ago
    I'm Greek, and "periphery" sounds fancy here too :P We'd just say "to the edge".
    • YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
      We also say "Perifereia Attikis" for the municipality (?) of Attica. I don't find it fancy, just not often used.
      • StavrosK 5y ago
        It depends on the context, you wouldn't say "στην περιφέρεια της ψησταριάς", that sounds pretty fancy.
        • YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
          It does. To be honest, I don't know how I'd phrase "on the edge of the barbecue". "Στην απέξω μεριά"? We also use "περιφέρεια" for the circumference of a circle so I could say "στην περιφέρεια της ψησταριάς" to make a nerdy joke... but that supports your point.
          • StavrosK 5y ago
            "Στην άκρη" I'd say.
            • YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
              Ah, right. Dammit. I'm starting to forget my Greek...
          • thaumasiotes 5y ago
            > We also use "περιφέρεια" for the circumference of a circle Blasphemy! (In English, at least, circles have a "circumference" while every other shape has a "perimeter". Ovals seem to use either word.) I never actually thought about combining "perimeter" with "circumference" to get "periphery".
  • jrochkind1 5y ago
    So I'm assuming there is some cognate to "periphery" in portugese -- a portugese word that sounds very similar to that, becuase of shared Latin etymology. so it's not that that word isn't fancy in portugese too. It's that that word might come easier to a portugese (or other romance language) speaker, since it's a cognate, so they use it, and end up sounding fancy in English. An English speaker could do the same thing in portugese with the same words in reverse!
    • carlosf 5y ago
      Exactly, periferia.
      • YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
        Only it comes (through Latin) from Greek :)
      • robocat 5y ago
        I notice I use some obscure words when speaking Spanish because there is a similar obscure word in English. I even guess at words by taking what I think is an English word with a latin root, and converting it to Spanish, which sometimes works really well and at other times it doesn’t work quite so well at all!
    • thaumasiotes 5y ago
      > I'm assuming there is some cognate to "periphery" in portugese -- a portugese word that sounds very similar to that, becuase of shared Latin etymology. "Periphery" does not have Latin etymology. "Peri" is overtly Greek, and so is "ph". The Latinate version would be "circumference".
      • dragonwriter 5y ago
        > "Periphery" does not have Latin etymology. Yes, the English word (and the Portuguese cognate, periferia) does have a Latin etymology, via Late and Medieval Latin peripheria. Now, the Latin word peripheria itself has a Greek etymology, from Greek periphereia. But both Portuguese and English get their word via Latin (and, in the English case, possibly also French, which also gets it from Latin, though sources differ on whether English got it from French or directly from Medieval Latin, and its plausibly not uniquely one or the other.)
  • asveikau 5y ago
    I think the typical word probably has no cognate in English. Eg. I don't speak fluent Portuguese but the closest cognate to o lado that I can think of would be to suggest to move it laterally.
    • dsr_ 5y ago
      To the side.
      • asveikau 5y ago
        Side is not a cognate with lado. It's a translation. Lateral is a cognate. They both come from latin latus.
  • WalterBright 5y ago
    > "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue" To my ear, that sounds like something a non-native English speaker would say, rather than what an educated native would say. In my head the phrase comes complete with a vague foreign accent :-)
  • thaumasiotes 5y ago
    My sister married a Brazilian guy, and one of the biggest things she noticed about his English was that he would agree with negative sentences ("I don't like sushi") by saying "Me too", which is impossible. (You have to agree with a negative sentence by saying "Me neither".)
    • dormento 5y ago
      Its more like: - "Eu não gosto de bolo" ("I don't like cake") - "Eu também [não gosto de bolo]" ("Me too [I don't like cake]")
      • thiagocsf 5y ago
        I’d have chosen “I also” to explain, even then it’s not what he uses but it makes a bit more sense in English: - I also [don’t like cake] After 15+ years speaking and writing English daily, I still trip over the use of “in, on, at”. And every now and then I have my first time pronouncing a word that I’ve known for years, from reading book in my teens. When I first tried to pronounce “phlegm” I tried to sound every letter on it.
        • thaumasiotes 5y ago
          > When I first tried to pronounce “phlegm” I tried to sound every letter on it. The G is pronounced in the derived word "phlegmatic". It can't be pronounced in "phlegm"; English phonology doesn't allow for "gm" as a sound cluster. (Whereas in "phlegmatic", you can put a syllable break between the G and the M, so it's at least possible to produce the sounds.)
  • scrubs 5y ago
    See my post elsewhere ... I was pointing out there are three things I dislike in native English Speakers (I am one) that I have not yet detected with my Portuguese friends. Now, I can't understand it but I've asked about this and nothing was confirmed or denied: - Stalling mid-talking with "ummm" or "ahh" while one thinks of more words to say - Rising intonation to make a statement; usually rising intonation is for questions" - Over reliance on works such as "like" ... which even now can be used to start a sentence as with: "like, I was going to the store the other day, and ..." Portuguese is a beautiful language, and like French definitely unlike English, pronunciation of all the syllables is required. In that way it's a more athletic language. In English it's quite important enunciate the first and last syllables, while we compress or cram the middle ones.
    • painfulpox 5y ago
      Stalling noises are common. In French, the most common one is a sort of euuuuuuuu noise. This is one of the first things taught in intensive language courses to sound "native." The rising intonation is just an evolution of the language. I doubt it will stick, but it seems to be mostly used in story-telling scenarios to express some exasperating or confusing scenario in which the question is the point of the story. Almost all meaning in English is in the grammar and diction, so intonation is much more of an aesthetic preference. Like is just a stalling word. French for example will often use words like donc to take a pause and decide how to best continue. There is all sorts of slurring going on in French, as well. You can certainly say gendarmerie, but you'll more often probably hear gendarmrie in day to day speech. Certain subgroups do tons of weird stuff like swapping syllables of words. Mon moto becomes mon Tomo. The language is pretty famous for not pronouncing the last syllable of tons of words. I don't speak Portuguese, but I bet you will find the same or similar patterns in that language.
• anotherhue 5y ago
  An Italian friend of mine, when struggling to find the word for a Satellite Dish, called it a parabola. I was very impressed.
  • manuelmoreale 5y ago
    I find that particularly amusing because Parabola is exactly how we call satellite dishes here in Italy. It’s technically called Antenna Parabolica but plenty of people simply call it Parabola (at least here up north)
    • mytailorisrich 5y ago
      Exactly the same in French, for what it's worth.
      • BrandoElFollito 5y ago
        I asked my teen children what "parabole" means to them and they had no idea that such antennas exist (or rather existed... at least for the generak population) :) They know about disquettes, though.
    • mumblemumble 5y ago
      Technically in English you'd only use "satellite dish" to describe a parabolic antenna that's being used for satellite communications. In practice, though, I don't think I've ever seen that happen outside of a technical context.
      • jpindar 5y ago
        What else does anyone use the term satellite dish to refer to?
        • mumblemumble 5y ago
          Parabolic antennas that are used for terrestrial communication.
• mondoshawan 5y ago
  I'm a native English speaker, and that sounds like something I've said before, and all I've had is public schooling, with no college. :)
• mwcampbell 5y ago
  I don't know if this is quite the same phenomenon, but when I attended the 2008 Lua workshop (in Washington, DC), my roommate was Brazilian, and when he needed to refer to the blanket on my bed, the word he found was "mantle".
• pmoriarty 5y ago
  "A native English speaker would never have said that... unless they had received a really expensive education." There's the opposite problem, too, where people with poor educations will try to use fancy words to impress people (but often wind up just sounding pretentious). One of my pet peeves is hearing people using the word "utilize". Just say "use"! It sounds far less pretentious and means the exact same thing. I intentionally try to simplify my word choice, even though my vocabulary is much larger than what I use in writing or daily speech, and even when the first word that comes to mind is long/fancy word. I try to use a five cent word when even a five dollar word would do. It sounds more natural, and you don't come off sounding like you're trying to impress anyone (which is usually counterproductive if you're using vocabulary to do it).
  • oblio 5y ago
    In Romanian "a utiliza" is "to use". I imagine it's the same in other Latin languages. So, see the original comment :-)
    • pmoriarty 5y ago
      I'm talking about native English speakers. It's not as grating if it comes from a non-native speaker, who you know hasn't mastered the language yet. When a native speaker says it, it feels like they should know better and are intentionally trying to make themselves sound smart.
      • kilbuz 5y ago
        I think a lot of the usage you reference is blindly picked up in corporate environments, and has little to do with trying to 'sound smart'. My wife laughs at my vocabulary on my Zoom calls. After listening to myself, I have to agree.
        • oblio 5y ago
          So what I'm hearing is that your ask for everyone is to not leverage obvious linguistic synergies in order to enhance the listening experience?
• TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  Portuguese sometimes has a strangely literary cadence and the sentence structure tends to formality. It's quite an unusual language - a mix of Romance, Arabic, and a hint of English, which sounds like Russian when spoken. There are also plenty of false friends which confuse native speakers of both languages. That still doesn't explain why someone would say periferia when they meant lado or maybe bordo.
  • reubenmorais 5y ago
    Usually the words that are close to Latin or Greek in Portuguese will have English equivalents (<- here's one!) that are also close to the Latin/Greek. So in a pinch for a word and trying to translate in your head, it's easier to remember the words with a smaller transformation from Portuguese to English than something very different. Some sort of compression coding of a translation dictionary inside of the brain :D
  • gverrilla 5y ago
    in Brazil the outskirts or suburbs of a city are called "periferia", and it might be that the person didn't know the english words for "lado" or "borda" so he used a close relative which is "periferia", sounds very plausible to me. nothing to do with fancy words, because "periferia" definetly ain't fancy (in pt)
  • orthoxerox 5y ago
    > which sounds like Russian when spoken Or rather Polish. Both Polish and Portuguese have nasals and sibilants in abundance.
• potta_coffee 5y ago
  That sounds like the kind of phrase I would use as a mild joke while hanging out with someone. It's my sense of humor sometimes to be intentionally fancy because it sounds pretentious.
  • loxs 5y ago
    Someone please tell me what's the correct way of saying this
    • fennecfoxen 5y ago
      "edge of the barbecue"
      • loxs 5y ago
        Uh, I would never say "edge", as for me the edge is the absolute end where it would fall off (also not a native speaker). Periphery is very natural and "the side" is probably how I would say this (as I realise that periphery probably does sound awkward). TIL
    • kuang_eleven 5y ago
      As is general true in English, there are a lot of idiomatic ways to say the same thing. I would probably say to move them "off to the edge" or just "to the edge". Confusingly, "off the edge" would not be correct, that would mean pushing them onto the ground!
      • BrandoElFollito 5y ago
        Wouldn't you say "on the side"?
        • pessimizer 5y ago
          Almost never. I wouldn't even assume that a grill had a "side", I'd think it was just as likely to be round. I'd say "edge." Native speaker.
• WalterBright 5y ago
  > A native English speaker would never have said that English has its barbarian roots overlaid with French words from the Norman conquest of England. The French aristocracy moved in and took over. The modern result of that is the "English" words of French origin are tells of upper class origins. Americans use that, consciously or unconsciously. Sometimes it's referred to as "coded speech". For example, someone from upper class America will "purchase" something while a lower class person will "buy" it. It's not just slight accent changes that distinguish class in America.
  • hervature 5y ago
    Very interesting. The connection to French is not immediately obvious as both "purchase" and "buy" would translate to "achat". However, "por chase" in French is "for the chase/hunt" which begins to resemble some definition of "purchase".
    • quickthrowman 5y ago
      Norman/Saxon meat/animal word pairs are interesting; the saxons were the hunters and farmers, and the normans ate the meat. This led to a bunch of word pairs: Beef/cow Poultry/chicken Pork/pig Veal/calf Mutton/sheep There are other areas of English vocabulary with dual Saxon/Norman words as well. Bill Bryson has a great book that explores how English became what it is now: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_Tongue https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_Tongue It’s an easy read with lots of interesting info.
      • Mediterraneo10 5y ago
        Please don’t recommend Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue. Bryson has no actual background in linguistics and there is a factual error or urban myth on nearly every page of that book. There are loads of pop-sci “history of English” books written by people who were actually competent in the subject.
        • quickthrowman 5y ago
• samuel 5y ago
  Bear in mind that people tend to use periphrasis for concepts don't know or can't remember in the moment, which can end sounding fancy.
• BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  It also depends on the kind of education. I studied physics so moving the burgers to the periphery of the bbq is great. Precise, unambiguous and what not. Moving them to the side may mean so many things: one side (which one), how bug the side is. Heck, is that side still on the bbq?
• angry_octet 5y ago
  > A native English speaker would never have said that... unless they had received a really expensive education. A native english speaker would not have said that, unless they wanted to sound like the instruction manual, or a BBC BBQ Sports commentator. It is overly formal, a common problem that non-native speakers face.
• thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > A native English speaker would never have said that... unless they had received a really expensive education. Education doesn't affect word choice much. The people who will say things like this were largely already saying them before they received an education.
• cosmodisk 5y ago
  English isn't my mother tongue and my vocabulary is rather simplistic but I had some situations where I had to simplify it even further,as some native English speakers didn't know the meaning of certain words: e.g. acquire, kitsch,etc. As for the example you mentioned, I mainly noticed similar when speaking with my French colleague: when he runs out of words he throws in a French word,which in most cases I can immediately understand because it's either used internationally or at least in my own language,but it's often not the most appropriate word for that sentence,so there's lots of 'periphery of the barbecue' :)