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Just shows the futility of this approach. Yes, you can find words, but do you use them? Is that a filly to you, or is it really just a horse? An extreme exampl
by vintermann 1y ago
Just shows the futility of this approach. Yes, you can find words, but do you use them? Is that a filly to you, or is it really just a horse?
An extreme example is the "it's called a zygyzgy of ptarmigans"-type alternative words for flocks of specific birds in English, which are basically made up and unused.
- ralfd 1y agoIf I ski and want to communicate to another skier the weather/piste: Yes
- vintermann 1y agoYes, but the point is, some use them, most don't. The existence of the words means that someone using the language cared enough about the difference to distinguish - but nothing about how few or many they were. Arguably the existence of niche words could even mean less, as in the flock words example, words that have more or less been invented as pure word games.
- tikhonj 1y agoThose grouping words are silly trivia, but if you want to see folks using lots of specialized snow-words casually, just hang out on the skiing subreddit :) (Well, maybe during the North American skiing season more than in late May.)