A Dictionary Could Be Dangerous

[SixteenthNote]

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?  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

That's something I never would have considered on my own. This isn't an easy language to learn and the dictionary, a learning aid, could accidentally be the detriment of someone who didn't have at least a basic understanding. My apologies for the run-on sentence.

 

[CristoVII]

Agreed, you kind of need to know the English manner of using words and be able to craft sentences at least decently before you start referring to the dictionary. Is it possible these students are foreign? If so, their faults might make sense.  

[Marcus McFlufferson]

Yes.

Anyone I know who doesn't know English literature at least moderately well will not touch a dictionary, as it only serves to confuse them further.

I have come across similar stupid sentances made by lower English literature students (back in school) trying to sound intelligent by the use of dictionary and/or thesaurus. It just doesn't work.  

[Londo Mollari]

I have no sympathy for stupid people who try to make themselves sound smarter in this fashion.

However, those who are learning English as a second language and use dictionaries can get quite odd translations too. Did anyone ever see Everything is Illuminated? One of the characters, a young man from the Ukraine, kept saying "in repose" instead of "asleep." It was technically correct but quite odd. English is a very confusing language, and it keeps getting more complicated every year!  

[The Shoe Pile]

Ah... it's so funny to come across those kind of things. xd

I don't know anybody who uses the dictionary to improve their writing but I do know a lot of people who abuse the thesaurus. It's really easy to see when someone's using a word "out of their league."  

[SilverBellsAbove]

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.  

[applecyder]

I have a feeling that those people who wrote those sentences do not speak English as a first language. At least, not very well yet.  

[SixteenthNote]

As SilverBellsAbove said,

Quote:

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.

I strongly agree on this. Some people learn something new just to show off, not to improve themselves. That's why they're English is stuck on the same level even though they've already graduated.

Sadly, those two students aren't foreign (according to my sister's teacher that is). Even so, I do think that they do not speak English very often or maybe not fluently- as said by Applecyder. There is a possibility that they only use English only when they're doing an assignment or when they're giving presentations. I think that's when the dictionary comes into the picture. They thought that they could improve their assignments and presentations by using it. But I guess those students made the wrong choice.

Not many people would admit that they're standards of English is low. And even less know the dangers of using a dictionary and/or thesaurus because of it.  

[MelanietheGreat]

I must say this: if a person's understanding of proper grammar in the English language isn't strong, then a dictionary will only confuse him/her. Sadly, even people who have been speaking

Quote:

English

their whole lives can really have a problem with this.

Is there a way to solve this? And where does it start?  

[The MoUsY spell-checker]

I think that dictionaries are better for finding the meaning of a word that you came across than for looking for words to use. It also matters whether the word is in common use or not. (This depends on how many words the dictionary has.)

SixteenthNote

In the first sentence, the student used the word pregnant because in the dictionary, it means 'carrying a baby'.

What dictionary was that?

SilverBellsAbove

Maybe that's why Txtlk has caught on: It eliminates the need to learn anything new.

People who don't already know it still need to learn it. With all the new combinations of letters and numbers that people come up with, you'll probably have to learn something new all the time to keep up.  

[SixteenthNote]

The MoUsY spell-checker

SixteenthNote

In the first sentence, the student used the word pregnant because in the dictionary, it means 'carrying a baby'.

What dictionary was that?

I'm not sure. It was my sister's teacher's dictionary. I think she was using the old editions when she told her experience to her class.  

[Munia]

Dictionaries are great tools to know the meaning of words, but the only way to grasp the actual usage of these words is seeing them in different contexts. Also, sometimes us non natives use odd vocabulary not because we looked it up in the dictionary or thesaurus, but because it resembles our own vocabulary (false friends are utterly evil crying ).  

[ramforce]

The only way I can think of a dictionary might be dangerous is that it falls from an airplane and lands square in my head.
Now, pilots don't throw stuff out their windows, actually, I don't even think they can open the window of a plane... or they do? confused  

[SonarP]

The dictionary sounds like it's a double-edged sword. What about the people that are "smart", but everyone thinks they use those words to make them seem smarter?