Hispoiema

A lot of times when I am writing to a friend, I will come up with a word that I am not sure even is a real word in the English language. I will look it up to check and I will find the correct word that I ought to use in place of my own word that I came up with. When this happens, I often favor the word I just inadvertently made up and then explain to my friend that I did indeed make it up and then explain to them the meaning. Now, with that said, I cannot think of any of those words at the moment. If I do I will come back and post them. It's just something I do spontaneously. Am I the only one who does this? :confused: I realize we can not do this within proper writing of course.

I actually love making up new words, and sometimes like them better than actual words. I ought to start writing them down when I do, because I rarely remember them and usually just find them useful for the purpose at hand. I looked up the word "administrate" at onelook and found this: verb: work in an administrative capacity; supervise A friend used a word recently that I had never heard before and I actually had to stifle a laugh. Later I looked it up to find that it was indeed a real word. Again I cannot recall it but it seemed to me to be a word I knew like "engage" used as a verb. But it had a prefix on it. That may have not been the root word. It meant something like the act of getting people involved in something without letting them realize that you are encouraging them to do it; but letting them think they came up with the idea on their own. Wish I could think of the word. grrr... :confused:

How about when people say things like "I'm serious and I'm not kidding". Or "I'm not even kidding". Why throw "even" in there? A friend made an awful mistake on one of those Christmas letters that people send out when she that her daughter's continence was changing. Of course, I'm sure she meant countenance.

Every once in a while, I find myself saying "What a great word". But can I think of them now? Not really; they usually come to me spontaneously when I am speaking or writing. But let me put my thinking cap on and see if I can come up with anything... klugey discombobulated exuberant to name a few. I know there are more. I'll probably wake in the middle of the night and think of them!

Here are some of my favorite quotes that have stuck with me: From The Wind in the Willows: "Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolute nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing," From The Phantom Tollbooth when Milo meets with the "Whether man" who tells him: "for after all it's more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be" From Dr. Suess: "Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!" Lewis Carroll: “I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then”

To me, poetry is art. Art comes from within the soul. The soul is who the person is intrinsically, as a result of their culture, lifestyle and very own personality. So, yes, I think that poetry is allowed, "in my book", to break the rules in order to remain true to the one who wrote it. :-)

Interesting conversation. I too often use too few words, in wanting to get to the point. I assume that people know what I am talking about, but they don't always and it can be very confusing. I also sometimes go into a Southern drawl type accent when saying certain things. It's a personality thing that I think I do semi-consciously, but I sometimes fear that people will think that is my real accent when it isn't.

The only thing I came up with from what others said is this: Languages have always been my passion and I am very eager to take part in your next translation project. Rest assured that I am willing to provide fully accurate translations at any given time. Instead: Languages have always been my passion and I am very eager to take part in your next translation project. Rest assured that I am willing to provide fully accurate translations at your convenience and on a consistent basis. I don't know. What do you think?

I can see your very real concern for genuine engagement and learning in the classroom. I once had my child's teacher say to me that spelling was not that big of a deal since computers and other devices have spell-check on them. I was shocked and speechless. Are you or the school able to enforce some sort of rule for such devices? If nothing else, having the kids deposit then temporarily into a box in the classroom until the end of the class. If they complain that it takes to long to get them at the end and get to their next class, perhaps there is the option of leaving them at home? Now, there's a novel idea...

I have a really difficult time using "lol" when writing to a friend. Even though I understand that it means "laugh out loud", I still read it as a word rather than taking it for what it means. It is just not natural to me. I prefer to say "ha,ha" or "he,he" depending on my mood/ feeling at the time and the topic at hand.

I think I am a medium speed reader. Reading out loud is slower, but I will read out loud if I am having trouble focusing on what I am reading and want to really understand it.

I have not heard of it, but I was just told about something called "Note Tab Light" that I just downloaded. It is very much like Notepad except that you can select all. I'm not sure if Notepad does that but I know that Word does not. But now when I type in certain programs, I notice that it corrects my spelling as I type. I didn't even know it did that. I only downloaded it to use as a sort of worksheet to type messages on and then repaste them into a particular email program. The idea was to save them in ".text" form so that when you paste them, the formatting does not get messed up and cause anguish. It actually looks like there is more to it then meets the eye, and I may slowly learn more about it as I have the time!

That sounds really cool. I just found it and downloaded it on my iphone. I could use any sort of game like that to help get my dendrites flowing!

That's great. I really like onelook.com but it does not have an app for phone. I bookmarked it on my phone and have it on the home screen.

Wow, I had not realized these types of resources were on line. I bookmarked them both for future reference. Thanks for posting them. I'm sure they will be very useful for all kinds of things.

I am American and I cannot always detect a Canadian accent until they say a word like "about" and then I hear it. The light suddenly turns on in my head and I realize "They're Canadian!" lol I was in England a few years back talking to some people and made mention of their accent. They looked at me funny and said "This is our country, *you're* the one with the accent". That thought had not occurred to me!

I think it is speaking of the choices you gave, but listening is, I think the hardest. With speaking you may have the correct pronunciation, but then there is the accent. My daughter makes fun of me if I use a Spanish word with an American accent. She says it is not supposed to be done that way. But I feel funny using the accent if it is not intrinsic to me. That is probably something I need to get past, huh? But I think listening is the hardest because native peoples talk faster than the programs we often use to learn their language.

I've always loved the idea of learning Latin since it is the basis for many languages and would make learning them, and even understanding words in our own language (English) easier and more fun. I live in Southern California and there are a lot of Spanish speakers here, so I figure I should learn that language. I feel ridiculous in some ways that I do not know it already. I did take 2 years in high school and a semester in college, but that was over 30 years ago and I only recall bits and pieces at this time.

I first heard about esperanto about 20 years ago and was fascinated by the idea. I somehow got a course (I must have sent for lessons in the mail; I cannot recall) and I began learning it. I remember it was really enjoyable and interesting. But as I thought about who I was going to use it with to talk to, I could not think of any case in which that would happen. Sadly I soon lost interest as a result. Although, I still enjoy the overall idea/ concept of being to talk to anyone anywhere.

I've always loved the idea of everyone in the world speaking the same language. How much easier it would make things! But I am not sure how well it would work for everyone to actually take an interest and actually follow through with doing it. I can see maybe businessmen or politicians seeing the usefulness in it at times, but often times in their case, English is already the universal language. It sounds like a wonderful idea, but I don't think it will ever fully take hold in reality.