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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:33 am
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Quote: The fireman went into the burning building and came out pregnant.
Quote: A girl went to the toilet to pass emotional.
Would you believe me if I said that these sentences were from extracted from essays of two college students? Probably... Probably not.
In the first sentence, the student used the word pregnant because in the dictionary, it means 'carrying a baby'. I'm not sure whether the second student was trying to raise his/her standard of English or not because that sentence doesn't make any sense. Why couldn't he/she just write 'motion' instead of emotional?
My sister was told about this by her English teacher (who basically had marked or seen these essays). Well, it was more of a lecture because her class was fooling around when she was going through something important. Anyway, the teacher explained that if your English isn't really strong, even a dictionary would not be able to help you.
What do you think? Should a person's English be of average standards before they use the dictionary as a reference?
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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 8:52 am
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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 11:02 am
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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 11:55 am
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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:22 pm
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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:47 pm
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It's not my place to say that people who misuse words by accident are actually dumb. Even dumb people could probably become more intelligent if they applied themselves. Also, I'm not saying that I, personally, am a smart person. I just know 'Punctual' from 'Pungent'. If you want to hear the horror story behind that one, It'll probably appear on another board where it's more appropriate to be housed at. sweatdrop
I really like the dictionary and the thesaurus. I like to look up new words in them; I think it's a lot of fun to find something I don't know and then use it.
But if a person doesn't take it seriously and does it to sound smart, not be smart, that's where things start to get ugly. Or the person just could be trying to learn something new and got it a bit wrong. I have no problem with the latter, I would just politely correct them and give a better word to use, maybe a silly one just for fun.
People don't use the dictionary after second grade, I find. After they know basic vocabulary, they don't care and when they want to find something new (maybe to mock someone else with) they end up failing because they've forgot how to use their brains and practice good word choice.
Then again, I may be wrong. I'm only a Sophomore. I bet when I get to college, I'm going to be dictionary-scrambling like crazy.
Maybe that's why Txtlk has caught on: It eliminates the need to learn anything new.
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 1:09 am
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:07 am
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Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:44 pm
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Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:17 am
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Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 11:25 am
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 5:24 am
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 10:24 am
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