Worst words in the English language?

[Zephyrus]

My only comment is that the English language is an abominable gargantua formed by falling empires and barbarian invasions and reconquests. It is a degenerate devolution of Latin, Greek and German into a bastardized tongue so unwieldy both for its native speakers and especially for those who aim to acquire it. It's only advantage is the luck that it is my own native tongue, thus granting me a better understanding of it, and the global advantages it entails.

 

[cookiecutter]

People often say how hard English is but it doesn't have arbitrary genders like most European languages and pluralizing and changing the tense of words mostly follows simple rules.

 

[unknown]

reminded me of this interesting article from The Economist: http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108609

 

[Zephyrus]

It certainly expresses the simplification-over-time principle, but by dropping inflections of case systems and gender it becomes a slave to syntax in order to distinguish subjects, objects and participles. For example, "dog-eating chicken" and "dog, eating chicken" sound the same in speech but have opposite meanings.

The lack of inflection requires tons of prepositions and helping verbs, thus making expression bulky and awkward.

Its systems of grammar and pronunciation are endemically plagued by exceptions to almost every rule, partly due to its uneven incorporation of classical terms, such as octopus (pl. octopodes) whereas other such words are pluralized like English.

That said, it's a fun language to study in terms of its historical development.

 

[Blind Guardian]

Its systems of grammar and pronunciation are endemically plagued by exceptions to almost every rule, partly due to its uneven incorporation of classical terms, such as octopus (pl. octopodes) whereas other such words are pluralized like English.

Don't all languages suffer from a certain amount of inconsistency though? Or is Latin perfect in that way?

 

[DarkBliss]

Haha, "significant other" does sound lame as hell.

Also, while I use it a lot, putting "dude" in front of sentences just sounds lame.
"Dude, I totally love this album. Dude this dude that dudette

 

[Zephyrus]

Don't all languages suffer from a certain amount of inconsistency though? Or is Latin perfect in that way?

Most languages simply over time and at the same time become more inconsistent. Latin is much more regular and can express things more concisely, but with more complex grammar. But Latin, which reached its literary prime in the 1st century BCE, is more inconsistent grammatically than was the Athenian Greek of the 5th century BCE, but even then it had plenty of exceptions to rules.

The spoken Greek and Latin were of course more inconsistent and closer to their modern descendants than their literary forms. With time, traditional literary English and modern spoken English continue to drift apart in the same fashion.

 

[Zephyrus]

What makes English one of the more inconsistent modern languages is its composition. Germanic languages like German, Swedish and Danish are composed of an overwhelming majority of Germanic words. English is also fundamentally Germanic, but the percentage of Greek, Latin and French that it incorporated is much higher than that of the other Germanic languages. Thus we have a hodgepodge of two divergent families, Romance and Germanic, with different grammars and phonics.

 

[SentinelSlain]

Presumably that means that English speakers have some kind of advantage when learning those other languages though, because more words will be similar or the origin will be recognisable.

 

[unknown]

where did this sudden tirade come from, zeph?

I'm not saying you're bashing the english language, but from what you've said and what anybody can glean from any introductory course to linguistics is an appreciation for the seemingly amazing feat the brain accomplishes by internalizing the rules of the english language largely without any extrinsic instruction.

too bad its speakers, for the large part, are idiots.

 

[Zephyrus]

Presumably that means that English speakers have some kind of advantage when learning those other languages though, because more words will be similar or the origin will be recognisable.

It does, and I feel lucky because of that.

where did this sudden tirade come from, zeph?

I'm not saying you're bashing the english language, but from what you've said and what anybody can glean from any introductory course to linguistics is an appreciation for the seemingly amazing feat the brain accomplishes by internalizing the rules of the english language largely without any extrinsic instruction.

too bad its speakers, for the large part, are idiots.

I'm not bashing it, I'm just using imagery to represent the anatomy of the English language vis-a-vis its contemporary and especially ancestral tongues. As a student of languages, it's human nature to prefer a more elegant, concise and predictable system.

 

[unknown]

I understand what you're saying. As a student of language, it's in my nature to be more fascinated by a literally living language that evolves and changes in response to trends in human society, including appreciating its ancestral roots and seeing how it responds to and synthesizes those languages into its own.

 

[Belligerent]

this thread makes me want to microwave kittens

 

[Satanstoenail]

Also, while I use it a lot, putting "dude" in front of sentences just sounds lame.
"Dude, I totally love this album. Dude this dude that dudette

Yeah dude is bad. I admit I do use it occasionally though, only in textual form but still it's not something I'm proud of and I really need to weed it out of my vocab once and for all.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Duuuuuuuuuude!!!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xUTu9sx9v0&feature=related[/ame]

 

[Estellise Sidos Heurassein]

"Irregardless" is the worst word in the English language.

 

[DarkBliss]

Seriously. But then it's for smarty-pants erudites like me.

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

Chuckle, Crisp, Dish, Exfoliates, Gots / Gotten, Impediment, Poetry, Revitalizes, Rudimentary, Rutabaga, Smarmy, Soothing, Supper, Swagger, Tart, Vitamins, Yoke / Yolk

On the other hand, these are my favorite words:

Bottle, Noodle, Puddle, Purple, Ripple, Scribble, Spoon, Turtle, Window

 

[DarkBliss]

Interesting. My favorite words are those that start with z or have both the letters q and z in them.Or those that end with que. Q is preferable, in general. Such an underrated letter,imo.

examples:
zeal
zany
zoo
zebra
opaque
picturesque
plaque
unique(god, I love this word!)
queue
quiz
squeeze
whimsical(doesn't uphold the "rules", but still awesome)

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

My favorite words are those that start with z or have both the letters q and z in them.

Maybe you should learn Chinese. The Q is pronounced like a CH though.

EDIT: China gets its name from the province of Qin.