Excorciate... spew... hyperbole... vitriol... who talks like that??

[Bluebear]

Have you noticed any other seemingly internet-only words that people tend to use that you just don't hear in the spoken language?

[Warpy]

1. I do

I've also had non readers tell me they don't know most of what I'm talking about half the time.

[Brigid]

2. You mean I'm not the only one?

I feel like Frazier Crane or Diane on "Cheers" sometimes.

[Bluebear]

3. That's interesting. I have never, ever heard 'vitriol' spoken aloud

Thought maybe it was archaic.

[salin]

26. don't use it often - but have used it...

captures a certain venomous/toxic nuance. Also have used a probably not recognized form of hyperbole to describe a speech that is full of rhetorical exaggerations as "hyperbolic". *shrug*. Never used the other two in conversation.

[Tunkamerica]

27. I've definitely heard it spoken aloud.

Mainly about the right wing.

[Warpy]

45. I usually use it as the modifier "vitriolic"

when I'm describing nasty prose.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Those are all in my daily vocabulary

which, along with more 'colorful' words, have gotten me into trouble more than once at work.

But then, I am a slightly published author and would be novelist.

[Bluebear]

5. Your DAILY vocabulary?? Erudite!

I have to withdraw the question, I guess these words are in wider use than I thought. Evidently I don't hang in such high-class circles lol!

[Speck Tater]

8. Not in my daily vocab,, but certainly in my weekly lexicon. nt

[pinboy3niner]

14. I youse dem frek...freq...frek...a lot nt

[Skittles]

6. LOL......PT

:rofl: I hear ye

[sofa king]

33. Now THERE's an Internet word not spoken: LOL

Unless it's already made the irony circuit and I was out that week.

[Fumesucker]

7. ...

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious..

Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious

If you say it loud enough you will sound precocious.

[Rabblevox]

9. I use "spew" and "hyperbole" regularly in speech. "excoriate" and and "vitriol"...

though I'm well aware of their meaning, I've never used, either written or verbal.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. Mr. dixie uses excoriate frequently...

Maybe he figures I would get mad if he used the word "nag" instead!!!!

He is a huge cross word puzzle fan, while I tend to "break down" my meaning into smaller words after years of working with a broad spectrum of clients.

[Behind the Aegis]

10. I use every one except "excorciate" when I speak.

I am trying to think of some that I mainly see on the internet that I don't hear in common speech.

On edit: One I see here often that I have NEVER heard in everyday speech: "cast aspersions on"

[aquart]

12. Yes. Why don't we like "excoriate"?

Although I tend to use "vitriolic" more than vitriol.

[Behind the Aegis]

18. Not a matter of liking or disliking the word, just never used it.

I do use "vitriol" more than "vitriolic." LOL!

[LooseWilly]

22. I, personally, am a great fan of the word 'excoriate'... it's like ideational seppuku....

performed upon someone other than oneself.

What's not to like?

[gkhouston]

15. Oh, I've heard that, as well as all the words in the OP. n/t

[KharmaTrain]

11. TeeVee Words...

When you have hours of time to fill with worthless babble...usually involving stenographers that's when those words pop out. Of course most of us rarely use those words in normal discourse, but then we're talking the world of politics here where one's lexicon is one's battle armour.

[markpkessinger]

13. I think you are mistaking "Internet only" for "more commonly used in writing than in speech"

It goes without saying that there is a slight divergence between casual, spoken English, and written English. When writing, a writer might very well use words that are a bit less common in every day speech, because of the specificity of those words' meanings. The written word lacks the aural and even visual cues that typically enliven spoken English -- the tone of voice, the slight smile or frown as particular word or phrase is uttered, the well-placed, pregnant pause before a word, etc. -- so it becomes necessary to use words with greater precision. That said, I can say that I have indeed used all four of the words you cite in conversation -- perhaps not every day, but if the word fits something I happen to be talking about, I don't hesitate to use it.

[Morning Dew]

16. I use all of those words. Nothing wrong with using or not using them.

That one internet only word I have trouble pronouncing is www.

maybe in a 3 stooges Curly voice?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5j8Jioan1w&feature=related

minus the nyuck nyuck nyuck

[Bluebear]

25. Well I didn't say there's anything wrong with it.

I think someone upthread mentioned they are used more in written form, but here you and others speak them all the time! Who knew!

[Morning Dew]

35. I forgot to add

that I enjoy many of your threads, Bluebear.

:)

[tblue37]

19. Those are ordinary words. Of course people talk like that.

I do tell my students (I teach college English) that they should make an effort to expand their active vocabulary to include many, even most, of the words in their passive vocabulary, since most people have a very limited collections of words for normal conversation.

But people who read widely do tend to have such words in their active vocabulary.

*Active vocabulary = the words you comfortably use when speaking and writing. Passive vocabulary = the words you would recognize in context if you came across them but would not feel comfortable using when speaking or writing. Some people also have a store of words that they might use when writing (especially when writing for a class), even though they are not that comfortable with those words and perhaps make mistakes sometimes when using them. Such words are actually part of their passive vocabulary, so when they try to use them in their own writing they sometimes use them a bit oddly.

[ohheckyeah]

20. I used the word dearth the other day

and the person I was talking to stopped me and asked me what it means.

I didn't think it was a particularly obscure word.

[Tom Kitten]

21. I expurgate sputum now and then...

Even though it's deeply personal it's something I prefer not to keep to myself...Who knows? Hack journalists might find it interesting...

[Demit]

23. Eschew obfuscation!

:)

[1monster]

47. LOL! I used obfuscate on a smart alec "advaced" student the other day and she

answered with a very puzzled look on her face, "Huh? What does THAT mean?"

[Populist_Prole]

24. Let's see

I hear and use words like Excorciate... spew... hyperbole... vitriol ( well maybe not excoriate ) but I've never heard any person, face-to-face use media speak words or terms like "blasts" ( as in "xyz group blasts abc group's plan.... ) or "slated" or "critics charge however..." or "experts say..." without sounding like complete tools.

[JHB]

28. I use those words...

...though "excoriate" does tend to be in written form, though not "Internet only".

[PoliticAverse]

29. You'll rue the day! n/t

[Madam Mossfern]

30. Yes, I do

Sometimes I get funny looks from people.
My family rolls their eyes, but it's expected of me.
Somehow though, because of my language, they think I'm not a "fun" person.
Think about it.

[rucky]

31. They're usually describing language you don't hear face to face. nt

[cali]

32. uh, lots of people. Most of the people I know have a command of language

and use words like that. I'm one of them.

[timtom]

34. Actually, I am one who does

(except for the word "spew").

I've used "excoriate" three times in the past month.

[SidDithers]

36. I thought you'd have been intimately familiar with "hyperbole"...nt

Sid

[scheming daemons]

37. +1000

[Bluenorthwest]

43. Sarcasm is the single most over worked and thus most constantly

failed verbal modality on the internet. It is the penultimate refuge of the constant evader, the wise cracker, the personal insult maven. It is, of course, rarely humorous in the context of the internet, and instead stands starkly announcing ill intent and roiling emotions around the opinions of others.
Sarcasm is just another way to avoid direct communications.
Is it wildly popular with the Harper voters in your country, Sid, as it is with the right here in the US?

[Romulox]

48. Just be glad he isn't defiling the picture of Eugene Levy with his anti-comedy any longer.

It began to make me sad every time I saw a rerun of SCTV. :shrug:

[SidDithers]

58. Fixed the sig pic, just for you...nt

Sid

[Romulox]

59. It's OK. Eugene Levy post SCTV work has been execrable.

There's a $5 word for ya, you humorless git. :hi:

[SidDithers]

60. C'mon now, the stuff with Chris Guest han't been too bad...

Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show etc.

Sid

[Romulox]

62. All kidding aside, Christopher Guest is a comic genius.

"Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show etc."

Ah, but Levy didn't appear in Mr. Guest's Magnum Opus: This is Spinal Tap. In fact, I would put Fred Willard's performance in Spinal Tap against anything Levy has done post SCTV. Hell, I would put Bruno Kirby's performance in Spinal Tap ahead of anything Levy has done since SCTV, too.

Bruno's cut scenes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7XncEILEGc

[dionysus]

55. !

:rofl:

[Bluenorthwest]

38. Not only do I talk like that, I've been asked 'why do you talk like

that' since I was about 8. It has always worked out well for me.

[Codeine]

39. Of your four examples

the only one I don't use regularly is "excoriate."

"Vitriol" is actually one of my favorite words.

[CBHagman]

40. Perspective, dear Bluebear, perspective.

Excoriate, spew, hyperbole, and vitriol all predate the existence of the Internets and indeed have been spoken aloud before these times. Indeed I once heard a very amusing mispronunciation of hyperbole. It sounded as though the speaker was referring to an overactive toilet.

[Bluebear]

51. LOlololol

Hyper bowl!

[Lyric]

41. I do.

:hi:

[Broderick]

42. It's like Church languange

Sit in church and it's blood of the lamb this, devotion and love that, died for me this, forgive my sins that, eating the body of Christ this, drink his blood etc. etc. Then they all leave the church, put on their jeans and talk normal. I like it when the knock on the door to encourage joining the church down here. It's silly speak to me.

[1monster]

44. I use them when I'm with others who love language. I also occasionally use

words like abdominous (potbellied) and absquatulate (to flee in an abrupt and fast manner).

My party word is floccipaucinihilipilificate:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/floccipaucinihilipilificate

The action or habit of judging something to be worthless.

Back in the eighteenth century, Eton College had a grammar book which listed a set of words from Latin which all meant “of little or no value”. In order, those were flocci, nauci, nihili, and pili (which sound like four of the seven dwarves, Roman version, but I digress). As a learned joke, somebody put all four of these together and then stuck –fication on the end to make a noun for the act of deciding that something is totally and absolutely valueless (a verb, floccinaucinihilipilificate, to judge a thing to be valueless, could also be constructed, but hardly anybody ever does). The first recorded use is by William Shenstone in a letter in 1741: “I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money”.

A quick Latin lesson: flocci is derived from floccus, literally a tuft of wool and the source of English words like flocculate, but figuratively in Latin something trivial; pili is likewise the plural of pilus, a hair, which we have inherited in words like depilatory, but which in Latin could mean a whit, jot, trifle or generally a thing that is insignificant; nihili is from nihil, nothing, as in words like nihilism and annihilate; nauci just means worthless.

The word’s main function is to be trotted out as an example of a long word (it was the longest in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary but pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis edged it out in the second). It had a rare public airing in 1999 when Senator Jesse Helms used it in commenting on the demise of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: “I note your distress at my floccinaucinihilipilification of the CTBT”.

I also love words like "bloviate" -- talk about onomatopoeias!

Dictionaries can be fun. :D

[Skidmore]

46. I have a four year old grand son who knows how

to use good vocabulary and has a large one. When he was two years old he know what "defenestrate" meant and could use it in a sentence. These are not internet words and they should be used in regular conversation. If someone doesn't know what they mean, point out the fact that we have dictionaries. Laziness all around.

BTW. My other grandson (a nine year old) just received his own pocket dictionary last week and actually did a happy dance when it was given to him. He was thrilled to get it and knows how to use it. But then, all of those kids are avid readers.

[MineralMan]

49. Those are common enough words. I've used all of them in speech and

heard them spoken.They're hardly internet-only. They're words that educated, well-spoken people use when they're appropriate. Appropriate takes the audience into consideration, too. Adjusting your level of diction based on the audience is a common practice.

[MineralMan]

50. In excoriating this post, it is not hyperbolic to spew a bit of vitriol.

:rofl:

[Creideiki]

52. I also use "exacerbate" frequently

As in the Obama Administration is "exacerbating" the problems that the Democratic Party is experiencing.

[Creideiki]

53. Oh, and I also use "abdicate" frequently

As in, the Democratic Party would be much better off if Obama would "abdicate" the nomination now rather than later.

[dionysus]

54. i've heard vitriol used in political reporting for a long time now. hyperbole's used a lot on the

internet, so i can see that. Excorciate, never hear that one in conversation though

[masmdu]

56. My dog's name is "Spew" so I use it daily.

[Odin2005]

57. Most of us here are smarter than the average person and have large vocabularies.

[SoCalDem]

61. The written word is often more "expressive" than the spoken word

People tend to think and edit as they write, but casual speech between peers takes on a shorthand, and rises or lowers depending on the person (people) involved.