n00b

[Oddsock]

Hi yall.

 

I heard today on the radio station I listen to that apparently, newb/noob is going to be added to the English language officially and will be the one millionth word!

 

I have yet to check any other news source on it but I wanted to know if you guys knew anything and your thoughts. To be exactly that number is pretty chance.

 

Personally I wish we had less words, even though a lot of them stem from new industries. Going back to trying to learn some languages (Gujarati, for example), it's nice to know I speak a pretty uncomplicated language in regards to alphabet, grammar, structure, and amount of words, but as words keep adding I feel a bit like that simplicity is lost.

 

Thoughts?

[Clem Fandango]

First off, they said it "could be"; nothing is certain.

 

Secondly, our language is pretty large and complicated compared to anyone of the romance languages. We have a lot of words that mean the same thing. For example, absurd, preposterous, ridiculous and ludicrous all mean the same thing. Languages like Italian and German are much easier.

 

And yes, I do realise that as soon as comeone replies to my second paragraph the thread will be officially derailed by linguistical banter.

[Jay]

Pathetic.

[K^2]

Secondly, our language is pretty large and complicated compared to anyone of the romance languages. We have a lot of words that mean the same thing. For example, absurd, preposterous, ridiculous and ludicrous all mean the same thing. Languages like Italian and German are much easier.

Same deal in pretty much every language. Nothing particularly special about English. In fact, English has fewer ways in which you can modify the words, so while the number of roots is similar or maybe slightly higher, the actual number of ways you can say the same thing tends to be higher in languages like Italian and French. And that's just in the Romance group. There are plenty of Indo-European groups that are far more complex to begin with.

 

By the way, English is one of the simplest languages to speak. I really don't know where the myth that it's one of the hardest languages have come about. There is a reason why it is used as an international language. Yes, British Empire had something to do with that as well, but there were many other empires, and yet, English is chosen by most people as their second language.

[Clem Fandango]

 

Same deal in pretty much every language.

Actually, no. most languages don't have a thousand different words for the same thing. Enlish is pretty irritating, because we took our words from all the different romance languages.

 

 

the actual number of ways you can say the same thing tends to be higher in languages like Italian and French.

I honestly don't know why I used Italian as an example. I completely forgot that they have at least four different ways of saying the same word. Formal feminine, formal masculine, informal feminine, infomral masculine. German is a good example of a pretty simple language, though. I'm sure it would be more universal if Germany actually founded countries the way Britain, France and Spain did.

 

 

There are plenty of Indo-European groups that are far more complex to begin with.

French Creole comes to mind. Things like that must be darn near impossible unless you grow up with it. Of course, things like that are native and European languages rolled into one, so of course those are going to be difficult.

 

 

By the way, English is one of the simplest languages to speak.

Indeed. My point was that it is large.

 

And just as I had predicted, we've derailed the thread with linguistical banter.

[Fnorg]

First off, they said it "could be"; nothing is certain.

 

Secondly, our language is pretty large and complicated compared to anyone of the romance languages. We have a lot of words that mean the same thing. For example, absurd, preposterous, ridiculous and ludicrous all mean the same thing. Languages like Italian and German are much easier.

 

And yes, I do realise that as soon as comeone replies to my second paragraph the thread will be officially derailed by linguistical banter.

Uhh, yeah, I've been studying German for the past five-ish years and it's a bitch to learn. The way each word is modified for tense and sh*t is complicated as hell, then you've got der, das, die and so forth. Pain in the ass. I've been speaking English fairly well since I was like eight or so, naturally not good enough to get a PhD or something but, yeah.

 

Adding noob to the dictionary is ridiculous, the Internet has really deteriorated English as a language. Soon enough they'll add WTF, FFS, ROFLMAO and whatnot.

[Clem Fandango]

Soon enough they'll add WTF, FFS, ROFLMAO and whatnot.

Well wouldn't that depend on whether or not acronyms belong in the dictionary?

[Fnorg]

Soon enough they'll add WTF, FFS, ROFLMAO and whatnot.

Well wouldn't that depend on whether or not acronyms belong in the dictionary?

They'll probably be added as proper words, not acronyms. I think LOL is listed as a word in most dictionaries.