Fancy Language: Recent Resurgence?

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In summary, the conversation discusses the use of fancy and technical language in online discussions. Although these terms are commonly used in scientific and philosophical circles, some argue that they can hinder effective communication and exclude those who are not familiar with them. Others argue that this is a good opportunity to practice using these terms in a practical setting. An interesting anecdote about Winston Churchill's use of complex language is also mentioned.
  • #1
Smurf
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Is it just me, or is everyone suddenly using fancy language again? I remember about half a year ago everyone got their hands on http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html" [Broken] and started using big words, and then it died down. But now it seems to be flaring up again.
 
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  • #2
This isn't fancy language; it's technical language. It's taught to everyone in Critical Thinking or Informal Logic classes that are part of the core requirement at most US universities, so posters who were college-educated in the US should, for the most part, know what these mean.
 
  • #3
Smurf said:
Is it just me, or is everyone suddenly using fancy language again? I remember about half a year ago everyone got their hands on http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html" [Broken] and started using big words, and then it died down. But now it seems to be flaring up again.
Or perhaps you are trying to kick it off again by supplying the ref lol
 
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  • #4
These terms have been in constant use in scientific, mathematical, and philosophical circles.
 
  • #5
Tom Mattson said:
These terms have been in constant use in scientific, mathematical, and philosophical circles.

Not to my knowledge.:confused:
 
  • #6
Tom Mattson said:
These terms have been in constant use in scientific, mathematical, and philosophical circles.
Yes but not HERE.
 
  • #7
Smurf said:
Yes but not HERE.

Yes, but there are people who post here who are also involved in these circles. Critical analysis of arguments and rhetoric are a huge part of the work I've been doing for several years now and these terms are par for the course.
 
  • #8
Smurf said:
Yes but not HERE.
Perhaps some folks are trying to raise the level of discussion in this forum by challenging the respondents to support their arguments and uphold the standards we have throughout the rest of PF?
 
  • #9
Smurf said:
Yes but not HERE.
I agree that some posters do indeed appear to inebriated by the exuberance of their own vibrocity and with a mendacious leaning, resulting in a disgorgance of terminalogicalinexactitudes. :biggrin:
 
  • #10
GENIERE said:
Not to my knowledge.:confused:

Certainly not all of them are used in each of those fields, but some of them certainly are. The reason is that some faulty patterns of reasoning are so common that it has become standard just to call them by name rather than to go into a detailed rebuttal each and every time that pattern surfaces in someone's argument.
 
  • #11
Moonbear said:
Perhaps some folks are trying to raise the level of discussion in this forum by challenging the respondents to support their arguments and uphold the standards we have throughout the rest of PF?
Exactly! THEY MUST BE STOPPED!
Art said:
I agree that some posters do indeed appear to inebriated by the exuberance of their own vibrocity and with a mendacious leaning, resulting in a disgorgance of terminalogicalinexactitudes. :biggrin:
You see!? Look at this madness!
 
  • #12
Smurf said:
You see!? Look at this madness!
Smurf, it was only a joke :biggrin:

I agree with you. The point of communication is to impart understanding to as wide an audience as possible and so if people decide to test their newly acquired vocabularies gleaned from a philosophy course they are taking they are clearly not going to communicate effectively with a substantial proportion of the other posters here.
 
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  • #13
Art said:
Smurf, it was only a joke :biggrin:
I agree with you. The point of communication is to impart understanding to as wide an audience as possible and so if people decide to test their newly acquired vocablaries gleaned from a philosophy course they are taking they are clearly not going to communicate effectively with a substantial proportion of the other posters here.

But this is like the perfect place to put into practice what you learn in class.
 
  • #14
Townsend said:
But this is like the perfect place to put into practice what you learn in class.
There's a philosophy forum to do that. This is a political forum.

Seeing as how most professional politicians can barely string a sentence together I am sure we can discuss their actions in plain English without resorting to highbrow language where the reader needs to sit with a dictionary in their hand whilst they try to decipher the language used to understand the points being made. Taking the post I made above that Smurf called madness as an example, whilst perfectly valid in terms of vocabulary and grammar it is meaningless gibberish to most.

nb They are actually statements used by Winston Churchill deliberately so that people would not understand what he was saying. In the house of commons an MP may not say another member has lied and so Churchill to circumvent this rule accused another member of speaking terminalogicalinexactitudes (another word for lies) as nobody had a clue what it meant he got away with it.
 
  • #15
Art said:
There's a philosophy forum to do that. This is a political forum.
Seeing as how most professional politicians can barely string a sentence together I am sure we can discuss their actions in plain English without resorting to highbrow language where the reader needs to sit with a dictionary in their hand whilst they try to decipher the language used to understand the points being made.

I agree and all but the philosophy forum lacks the interesting topics that this forum has.

That is an interesting bit of trivia about Winston Churchill by the way. :smile:
 
  • #16
Maybe if we supply translations at the end of each post for the dumber readers of the forum, then everyone'd be happy.
 
  • #17
Art said:
terminalogicalinexactitudes.
How do you pronounce that? I want to use it in my class on tuesday!
 
  • #18
Smurf said:
How do you pronounce that? I want to use it in my class on tuesday!

Just make up your own pronunciation...after all it's not like anyone will know if you said it wrong.
 
  • #19
It's actually spelled incorrectly, but it's just a compound word. Pronounce it as a series of simpler words: terminological in exactitudes.
 
  • #20
By the way, allow me to quote to you from an article I am using as research for a presentation I'm giving:

Deleuze uses the term in a second but closely related sense, one referring to the capacities of final products to enter into further processes. In particular, in this second sense the term refers to the capacity of individual entities to enter as components of heterogeneous assemblages, that is, compositions in which the differences among the parts are not canceled through homogenization. The extensive properties of an actual organism (as well as the qualities which define its identity) are produced by spatiotemporal dynamisms driven by intensive differences. In other words, individual organisms are 'actualized' via a difference-driven morphogenetic process.

That passage employs technical jargon from contemporary philosophy (largely borrowed from thermodynamics in this case). Since we're at a science forum, chances are that the average poster here will be able to read that more easily than I, but to the layperson it probably may as well be Sanskrit. The names of informal logical fallacies, in contrast, are relatively simple and well-known. Their usage is certainly not limited to academic philosophy and it would do anyone who makes arguments well to know them. After all, wouldn't you like to be able to catch yourself when you are making an error so common that it actually has its own name?
 
  • #21
What does "actualized" mean anyway?
 
  • #22
Smurf said:
What does "actualized" mean anyway?

The opposite of `fantasize’ as in liberal writings, fairy tales and the like.
 
  • #23
You're a pillock. I don't mean to be mean, just, you know that you're a pillock right?
 
  • #24
Smurf said:
You're a pillock. I don't mean to be mean, just, you know that you're a pillock right?

Careful now, I took 2 semesters of French some 45+ years ago but since it served no useful purpose to me, I remember only a few pejorative words. I do realize it is a necessary element of liberal discourse.


..
 
  • #25
I declare Smurf to be Fallacy Of The Crucial Experiment
 
  • #26
Smurf said:
What does "actualized" mean anyway?

It's can be either the past-tense of the verb "to actualize," which can be expressed as "to be made actual," or, alternatively, an adjective describing the state of having come into existence. I believe that DeLanda (the author of this quotation) intended it in the second sense. Entity X is actualized if, and only if, it has come into existence. He probably also intends it to mean that the entity in question still exists; that is, it did not come into existence and then blink back out of existence. That is just speculation on my part, however; he never specifies to that degree exactly what he means.
 
  • #27
i think longer words come out when people crack smaller words like "if" and "when" and "he" and "because".

ei.
poster1- in your last statement, what is exact definition of "since"?
poster2- i meant it to just mean "since"
poster1- no sorry, I am right and your wrong, your point has been sunk and i win"
poster2- oh fine, it actually meant "in the possible contingency of".
poster1- interesting point...
 
  • #28
Smurf said:
Is it just me, or is everyone suddenly using fancy language again? I remember about half a year ago everyone got their hands on http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html" [Broken] and started using big words, and then it died down. But now it seems to be flaring up again.
I agree with loseyourname and I've been saying it for some time (as has he). What it actually looks like to me, though Smurf, is that the liberals on this board are dropping their level of debate and that is causing the apparent contrast you're noticing. The liberals are just arguing mindless rhetoric while the conservatives are insisting on precision of wording. The impeachment thread is a good example: we're three pages into a discussion of impeachment and we have yet to see anyone say what the charges should be! It's just random Bush-bashing.

I will, however, give props to the several liberals who insisted on using the correct definition of the word "impeachment" in that thread. The rhetoric does have limits for some.
 
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  • #29
to actualize

Its actualise where I am from :-)

What it actually looks like to me, though Smurf, is that the liberals on this board are dropping their level of debate and that is causing the apparent contrast you're noticing.

Thats a bit of a sweeping statement, sometimes I think the opposite. That the Conservatives, seem to focus on the details, and miss the big picture. They also tend to ignore the important questions...

Anyway it seems I have to watch what I say round here, so no offence Russ. Typically you are very clear, I don't aggree with you always but you are clear enough
 
  • #30
Art said:
nb They are actually statements used by Winston Churchill deliberately so that people would not understand what he was saying. In the house of commons an MP may not say another member has lied and so Churchill to circumvent this rule accused another member of speaking terminalogicalinexactitudes (another word for lies) as nobody had a clue what it meant he got away with it.
He wouldn't have gotten away with that in the US. Several years ago, the public got all up in arms when a black newspaper columnist described a program director who was overly tight with his program's money as "niggardly".
 
  • #31
russ_watters said:
I agree with loseyourname and I've been saying it for some time (as has he). What it actually looks like to me, though Smurf, is that the liberals on this board are dropping their level of debate and that is causing the apparent contrast you're noticing. The liberals are just arguing mindless rhetoric while the conservatives are insisting on precision of wording. The impeachment thread is a good example: we're three pages into a discussion of impeachment and we have yet to see anyone say what the charges should be! It's just random Bush-bashing.
Oh, but of course. It's only the liberals that resort to random bashing.
 
  • #32
IMO, the 'regulars' in P&WA and GD who do not venture elsewhere into the site would benefit greatly from reading the Philosophy section at the very least. It's not necessary to learn Latin terms, but some knowledge of how to argue rationally would certainly benefit anyone whose purpose is to persuade others. In the space of 2 days in the P&WA Forum I have seen remarks that indicate the inability to distinguish between a valid argument and an invalid one, a rebuttal from a personal attack, and even a declarative sentence from a question (!).
 
  • #33
Smurf said:
Oh, but of course. It's only the liberals that resort to random bashing.
Pretty much, yeah. This forum is dominated by liberals and because of that, you guys control the tone. When no one in the entire first page of a thread comments on the article in the OP (the Hummer thread), what else can be said about it? When no one in a thread about impeaching Bush can come up with any charges to impeach him for, what else can be said about that?
Anttech said:
Thats a bit of a sweeping statement, sometimes I think the opposite. That the Conservatives, seem to focus on the details, and miss the big picture. They also tend to ignore the important questions...
I'll admit to paying a lot of attention to details (whether it is undue attention or not is a matter of opinion, and you are entitled to yours). I've been called a pedant before and I'm fine with that. I am, afterall, an engineer.
 
  • #34
Tom Mattson said:
IMO, the 'regulars' in P&WA and GD who do not venture elsewhere into the site would benefit greatly from reading the Philosophy section at the very least. It's not necessary to learn Latin terms, but some knowledge of how to argue rationally would certainly benefit anyone whose purpose is to persuade others. In the space of 2 days in the P&WA Forum I have seen remarks that indicate the inability to distinguish between a valid argument and an invalid one, a rebuttal from a personal attack, and even a declarative sentence from a question (!).
Bravo, to that.
 
  • #35
Smurf said:
Maybe if we supply translations at the end of each post for the dumber readers of the forum, then everyone'd be happy.
I learn new words in here all the time, Smurf - there is nothing wrong with reaching for the dictionary every now and then.
 
<h2>1. What is Fancy Language and why has it recently resurged?</h2><p>Fancy Language refers to the use of elaborate, complex, and sophisticated language in speech or writing. It has recently resurged due to various factors such as social media, increased emphasis on language and communication skills, and the desire to stand out and be unique.</p><h2>2. How does the use of Fancy Language impact communication?</h2><p>The use of Fancy Language can make communication more interesting and engaging, but it can also make it more challenging for some people to understand. It may also create a barrier between the speaker and the audience, as not everyone may be familiar with the words or phrases used.</p><h2>3. Is Fancy Language a sign of intelligence?</h2><p>Not necessarily. While a person's vocabulary and ability to use sophisticated language can be an indicator of intelligence, it is not the only factor. It is important to consider the context, audience, and purpose of using Fancy Language before making assumptions about a person's intelligence.</p><h2>4. How can one improve their use of Fancy Language?</h2><p>Reading widely and regularly, expanding one's vocabulary, and practicing using sophisticated language in different contexts can help improve one's use of Fancy Language. It is also important to be mindful of the audience and to use it appropriately and effectively.</p><h2>5. Is the use of Fancy Language necessary in all situations?</h2><p>No, it is not necessary in all situations. While it can be beneficial in certain contexts, such as public speaking or formal writing, it may not be appropriate or necessary in casual conversations or informal settings. It is important to consider the purpose and audience before using Fancy Language.</p>

1. What is Fancy Language and why has it recently resurged?

Fancy Language refers to the use of elaborate, complex, and sophisticated language in speech or writing. It has recently resurged due to various factors such as social media, increased emphasis on language and communication skills, and the desire to stand out and be unique.

2. How does the use of Fancy Language impact communication?

The use of Fancy Language can make communication more interesting and engaging, but it can also make it more challenging for some people to understand. It may also create a barrier between the speaker and the audience, as not everyone may be familiar with the words or phrases used.

3. Is Fancy Language a sign of intelligence?

Not necessarily. While a person's vocabulary and ability to use sophisticated language can be an indicator of intelligence, it is not the only factor. It is important to consider the context, audience, and purpose of using Fancy Language before making assumptions about a person's intelligence.

4. How can one improve their use of Fancy Language?

Reading widely and regularly, expanding one's vocabulary, and practicing using sophisticated language in different contexts can help improve one's use of Fancy Language. It is also important to be mindful of the audience and to use it appropriately and effectively.

5. Is the use of Fancy Language necessary in all situations?

No, it is not necessary in all situations. While it can be beneficial in certain contexts, such as public speaking or formal writing, it may not be appropriate or necessary in casual conversations or informal settings. It is important to consider the purpose and audience before using Fancy Language.

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