4 ms·

I wonder where the author learned English - there are a lot of words and phrases in this article/book that I’ve never heard before! To simper, adoration, put on

by soared 3y ago

I wonder where the author learned English - there are a lot of words and phrases in this article/book that I’ve never heard before! To simper, adoration, put on airs, amorous, interlocutor, etc

tinix 3y ago
the author is French. these are just Latin derived words.
- toadi 3y ago
  Not sure what the point of your comment was. But if he is French and that is connected to the Latin hence he had good(weird?) vocabulary. English vocab is also mostly derived from Latin. "80% of the words in the English dictionary are Latin derived." https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-origins/ https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-origins/
  - tinix 3y ago
    right, that's exactly my point, many French words are also English. amorous, etc... it's no surprise, as you say... every word op listed is Latin root and French too.
toadi 3y ago
English is my 3rd language. I read only English not in my native tongue. I used to keep a booklet with me write down words I didn't understand. Looked them up later. After a while had a big list which I regularly. Kindle shows you the meaning automatically now and keeps also a list of words which I regularly review. Over time your vocabulary gets much wider. I have native English speakers asking me where I got certain words from because they are not often used spoken. Another trick is when you write look up synonyms instead of using the same word over and over again. But in the words you dropped I learned at least 1 new one. To simper :)
ask_b123 3y ago
Sounds like a Romance language.
nunuvit 3y ago
They're still used, but they sound a bit historical outside of specific contexts such as ... simper in written fiction, adoration in Catholicism, interlocutor in learning about language and communication, amorous to describe the nature of an adult relationship or activity in a way that's humorously obvious but safe for work. A French author studying communication and writing in English could reasonably encounter all of them multiple times. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=simper%2Cadoration%2Camorous%2Cinterlocutor%2Cput+on+airs&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=simper%2Cadora...
jonahx 3y ago
As a native English speaker, I consider all of these just barely outside the range of common. "adoration", "amorous", and "put on airs", especially -- I'd be very surprised if a college-educated, native speaker had never heard these.
Semaphor 3y ago
English as 2nd language, only "simper" was new to me (and is actually close-ish to the modern "simping"). My favourite new word I learned is from "Malazan Book of the Fallen": "susurration" [0], a word that, in my experience, even many native speakers don’t know, yet is uniquely beautiful (to me). [0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/susurration https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/susurration
- sph 3y ago
  To whisper in Italian is sussurrare (mind the double s)
fsckboy 3y ago
if you've read literature from 1850 to 1950 you've encountered these words, stuff like Dickens, Twain, Bronte, Mann, Eliot, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, etc.
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
I think listening to endless cassette audiobooks of Just William and Jeeves and Wooster on car journeys was probably the single best thing to happen to my English learning as a child. The vocabulary of the first half of the 20th century is much wider than I expect from more recent books. I'd actually be surprised if any of those words didn't occur at least once. "Simper" certainly did: Violet Elizabeth did so at every opportunity when adults were around.
deleted 3y ago
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by soared 3y ago

I wonder where the author learned English - there are a lot of words and phrases in this article/book that I’ve never heard before! To simper, adoration, put on airs, amorous, interlocutor, etc

tinix 3y ago

the author is French. these are just Latin derived words.

toadi 3y ago
Not sure what the point of your comment was. But if he is French and that is connected to the Latin hence he had good(weird?) vocabulary. English vocab is also mostly derived from Latin. "80% of the words in the English dictionary are Latin derived." https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-origins/ https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-origins/
- tinix 3y ago
  right, that's exactly my point, many French words are also English. amorous, etc... it's no surprise, as you say... every word op listed is Latin root and French too.

toadi 3y ago

English is my 3rd language. I read only English not in my native tongue. I used to keep a booklet with me write down words I didn't understand. Looked them up later. After a while had a big list which I regularly. Kindle shows you the meaning automatically now and keeps also a list of words which I regularly review. Over time your vocabulary gets much wider. I have native English speakers asking me where I got certain words from because they are not often used spoken. Another trick is when you write look up synonyms instead of using the same word over and over again. But in the words you dropped I learned at least 1 new one. To simper :)

ask_b123 3y ago

Sounds like a Romance language.

nunuvit 3y ago

They're still used, but they sound a bit historical outside of specific contexts such as ... simper in written fiction, adoration in Catholicism, interlocutor in learning about language and communication, amorous to describe the nature of an adult relationship or activity in a way that's humorously obvious but safe for work. A French author studying communication and writing in English could reasonably encounter all of them multiple times. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=simper%2Cadoration%2Camorous%2Cinterlocutor%2Cput+on+airs&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=simper%2Cadora...

jonahx 3y ago

As a native English speaker, I consider all of these just barely outside the range of common. "adoration", "amorous", and "put on airs", especially -- I'd be very surprised if a college-educated, native speaker had never heard these.

Semaphor 3y ago

English as 2nd language, only "simper" was new to me (and is actually close-ish to the modern "simping"). My favourite new word I learned is from "Malazan Book of the Fallen": "susurration" [0], a word that, in my experience, even many native speakers don’t know, yet is uniquely beautiful (to me). [0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/susurration https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/susurration

sph 3y ago
To whisper in Italian is sussurrare (mind the double s)

fsckboy 3y ago

if you've read literature from 1850 to 1950 you've encountered these words, stuff like Dickens, Twain, Bronte, Mann, Eliot, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, etc.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

I think listening to endless cassette audiobooks of Just William and Jeeves and Wooster on car journeys was probably the single best thing to happen to my English learning as a child. The vocabulary of the first half of the 20th century is much wider than I expect from more recent books. I'd actually be surprised if any of those words didn't occur at least once. "Simper" certainly did: Violet Elizabeth did so at every opportunity when adults were around.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]