Dumbing down speech

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I had a tyre slashed on the weekend........

The people i was around put guns or a club against your head for remarks that could cause them embarrassment.

And, what you may have said to offend the person would be something that other cultures may not have given a second thought about.

TheSunAlsoRises

Yes, I would consider someone who thought a tri-syllable to be a "big word" to have literary deficiencies. Not knowing the word is not the same as considering it a "big word".

I generally prefer to err on the side of believing that the listener will know what I'm talking about, but if I have specific reason to believe that they won't (young child, foreigner not fluent in English, developmentally delayed, experience of past conversations with the listener) then I will try to "dumb it down".

It only took me a second until I got what this thread is about.

I even include words into my "canon", so that I can use them at any given time. I tend to overuse them, actually. ^^ During conversation, I find myself thinking, "Stop using that word", but I feel I have to "dumb down my speech" so that people will think I'm normal.

It's become a long-term project.

I wondered the other day... whether being on the spectrum means you're more resistant to class-bound speech. So your speech will be mixed up because you don't make these differences that other people make when you speak. I often notice when someone says, "Just listen to them talk" and I always get really upset. I sometimes have that with people who use high register words to make themselves look better.



Well, I think I know why people expect you to talk a certain way. It's all about the group you're talking to. Also, being a "member" of a certain social class already dictates you which words you're "allowed" to use. The same goes for work. I don't think it's reasonable at all, unless communication gets more complicated.

I sometimes use a word because I like it. I don't care much about other people's opinion on my word choice. I try to suit them as much as I can, but I don't force myself.

It just occurred to me that it is especially expected of girls to dumb down their speech. It's quite odd. I never really understood why other girls did that.

I don't consider it "dumbing down"; I consider it to be more like learning the casual language of the people around me.

If you watch NTs in conversation, you see that they can express a very complicated concept in very simple words, whereas you would probably use very precise and likely more complex words to say the same thing. That's because they are also using tone-of-voice, body posture, speed of speech, movement, pitch and inflection, and the shared body of cultural knowledge to communicate.

It's a little like English vs. Mandarin. Mandarin is a tonal language: You can say something with one sort of pitch and it means one thing; say it with another sort of pitch and it means anther thing. In English, the word is the same. Aspie looking at NT is like a tone-deaf English speaker learning Mandarin, unable to get the extra inflections and missing some of the information.

The NT "language", with its simple words and many non-word elements, is something I think we can learn; but just like that English speaker learning Mandarin, we'll never speak it as well as a native speaker. I wouldn't call it "dumbing down", though. Those extra meanings are there; they're just not being communicated in words.

Like, we hung at the mall, and it was really cool.

Our group met at the mall, where we spent an enjoyable day together

<3

I know exactly what you mean. I'd rather ask than blame someone for a word I don't know.

Well, if they really consider that to be an enjoyable activity I'm not really surprised they can't master anything more than the first statement.

I must know NTs a lot then, because a lot of youngsters I know have gone to college to study things they are interested in. My NT cousin is interested in computers, and he knows everything about them and can build them, and although he's always been into computers from a young age, he went to college to further his career, and now he has a job in a place where they build computers.


I reckon I'm stupid, because my IQ is average, I am no good at solving puzzles, and I don't have a very logical mind at all.

That is a fantastic metaphor. Or is that simile? (Don't immediately know the big word for that one. )

But seriously, I like the comparison you make between Mandarin v. English and 'neurotypical' vs. autistic language. Other factors also play a part in the other direction, with Chinese-speakers learning English: 'p' 'b', for example, are differentiated in English because one sound is voiced and the other is unvoiced. Mandarin in turn differentiates between an unaspirated sound and an aspirated sound (in Pinyin represented by 'b' and 'p' respectively). So for some Chinese speakers it's difficult to get the difference between minimal pairs like 'big' and 'pig', though it helps a little that most English dialects aspirate the initial 'p'.

More than before, lately I've sometimes felt as though I'm speaking a different language compared to most people. I'm not sure why that's intensifying.

Was this person in their 20's? Sometime in the last 10 years (I'm not sure when) "random" became a catchphrase used by young people. They do use it correctly most of the time, but often overuse it so it loses it's meaning. "So Random" even became a title of a sketch comedy series recently. The word "random" became so ubiquitous in young people's speech that I think some of them started to think they owned the word and older people who used it were just trying to pathetically act young.

If there is an age gap between you and the person who said, "OOOOOH RANDOM" mockingly, then what they were mocking was probably what they wrongly thought was your attempt to appear young and hip by using young peoples' slang. It's ridiculous for them to mock that since it was a word in common use since long before these little whippersnappers were born. I doubt today's young person hasn't heard "random" and thinks it's exotic. They seem to think they own it since they co-opted it for slang.

Yes, I am a grumpy old person who has had youngsters think I was attempting to be hip when I used "random" as I had for decades.

edited to add: I just looked at your age (should have done that before) and it says you are 28. So it wouldn't be the "pathetic old person trying to be hip" mocking unless this person is 22 or younger (I have come across plenty of 21 and 22 year olds who think somebody 28 is old- I even used to be one). If they are near you in age, they might have been mocking your use of it- not realizing it has a real use and not just a slang use. I do find it unlikely they haven't heard it before due to its' current (or at least recent) use as slang. But maybe that's regional. Or maybe it has died out as slang and you were being mocked for outdated use of old slang.

If this person was in their 30's or 40's then I'm at a loss.

I encounter this constantly. I couldn't count the number of times I've been told to "stop using big words."

My stepmom, stepbrother and stepbrother's girlfriend were outside talking about cavemen (for what reason, I am unsure), and my stepmom made an assertion about cavemen at some point that was inaccurate, and somewhere within my explanation of the facts I said the word "implement." Now, I don't at all consider 'implement' to be a 'big word,' as I thought it was fairly common word in the English language, but all three of them gave me puzzled looks, and my stepbrother said: "implement? Why do you always have to use such big words?"

I explained that in this context I used 'implement' instead of 'tool', and he got huffy and wondered aloud why I couldn't just say tool.

Now, I don't tend to use formal vocabulary all of the time, but in some situations, I feel one word fits the context of the discussion better. I wouldn't ask someone to go out to the implement shed and grab me a hammer...but it felt like a better word to describe the types of tools cavemen would have used.

I do love words, though (I got a 17 on the vocabulary part of my IQ test), and there are some words that I'm going to use in any situation, simply because I like them, such as dichotomy or plethora. Try and stop me!

Oh, I saw someone else mention having to 'dumb down' or alter the sentence formed in their head before speaking, which slows their speech and causes stuttering. I have a problem similar to this, in that I'll be thinking of something to say, and at the last minute I'll try to swap one word for the other, and I just end up combining the two words together. I do that a lot.

I actually enjoy the challenge of "interpreting" a concept into simpler English. 50% of the US population is sub-literate, some are illiterate entirely. It's not totally their fault - the education system is failing us, and it's position in our economy trains us not to be particularly complicated or incisive in our everyday thinking. I am always using botanical names, every day, in my work. This morning I wrote a piece on matteucia struthiopteris, Ostrich Fern, for people interested in collecting wild fern fiddle-heads in the upcoming weeks. It's important to be able to describe in detail to people the features of a plant for identification. I can't use a word like "tomentum" to describe the fuzz on a leaf, nor can I use word like "meristem" and expect people to comprehend what this means in botanical terms. So I use word like "fuzz" to describe the tomentum on plant leaves, and a phrase like "actively growing" or "tender new leaves" to describe the meristematic parts of a plant. This is even more important when dealing with fungi. For me it's a matter of effective teaching - I use lesser words and terms for the sake of safety and effective communication. It's really a question of whether or not I want to communicate accurately the information that people need to observe for themselves what I'm talking about.

I've also noticed a tendency to use the word "random" in situations where what they are discribing as anything but random. Why, there is even a sub-forum at WP called "Random Discussion"; of course everything discussed there is entirely intentional and not "random" at all.

I tend to only "dumb down" my speech when talking about technical areas of my science special interests with people who are not familiar with science. But with scientists, I never want to explain something that somebody already knows and insult their intelligence. (I HATE when that's done to me.) So, when talking with other scientists, I use my full technical vocabulary, and often times, I will get blank stares. I'm not sure if the stares are that the person isn't familiar with the level of difficulty I assume they should be familiar with or if they are astounded that I know so much when I typically don't talk about my true field of education. It's kind of unnerving, but I just continue on, and if they want me to clarify, I figure they should directly ask. As for general conversation, if a "big word" enters my mind and doesn't seem overly arrogant to use, I'll go ahead and use it. I do try to "dumb down" words in situations that may seem arrogant, except in writing. I always sound overly formal and more erudite in writing than I do in regular speech.

Last edited by OddDuckNash99 on 22 Mar 2012, 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.