Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

You can't fight City Hall, but you can fight Spammy Hall pretty well.

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You look like you need a hug.
*hug*
There, now don't you feel better?

Jésus est mon raison d'être.

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Truer words couldn't be spoken.

My raison d'être is to get people to stop using phrases like "raison d'être" when simple English will do.

- Kef

Jesus est mon homeboy.

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<(* ) THRUSTER DUCK
( << )<~~~ WANTS
O O YOUR SOUL

but it sounds fancy!

That's the problem. That, and not everybody knows what it means, so it obfuscates without real benefit. My rule of thumb is that, if you have to explain a phrase, you're better off without it.

I don't like fancy Latin or French expressions because they seem snobbish, as if to say, "Hey, look at me, I'm cultured". They really add little to the language, in my opinion. Of course, there are exceptions where the term is more appropriate, and indeed the name of this thread might be one of them. (I myself sometimes like to use a foreign phrase to introduce a topic of discussion, of course elaborating on the phrase's meaning.) But i don't like it when a phrase like "raison d'être" is just stuck in text (or, worse, a conversation) with no reason.

I remember once I saw the phrase "in flagrante delicto" on Wikipedia and I posted on the talk page about it, suggesting perhaps the phrase ought to be replaced. The response I got could be condensed to, "if you're smart enough to look things up in an encyclopedia, surely you could look up what 'in flagrante delicto' means" (ignoring, of course, that looking this phrase up is a complete waste of time other than to find out what precisely the article is saying in the first place). By the way, it means "in the act". So why not say "in the act"?

Ah well, toastpaint.

- Kef

Not everyone knows what "obfuscate" means, either.



But it sounded GREAT when Tim Curry said it in the movie "Clue"! Hehe.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

I had a hunch somebody would pick that out, and I almost made a preemptive comment on it. (Oh man, am I gonna have to define "preemptive" now?)

I think "obfuscate" is a useful word, though, and I don't think it's often used just to show off vocabulary. What bugs me about Latin and French expressions, other than exceedingly common examples like "et cetera", is that they serve no apparent purpose other than to show off.

- Kef

It'd be nice for the people who are too lazy/doing something esle to go to dictionary.com.

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I agree, that it can be a problem--especially in the world of academia. Even when someone just happens to use a word from their own vocabulary that happens to be much more extensive than most other people's, and they don't mean to sound "snobby" by using it, they might often come across as being the "snobby intellectual," simply by the perceptions of others. Really, it goes back to the same instinctive mannerisms of Grog having a bigger Whacking Club than his fellow cavemen--it's a quest for superiority and power (as is so much of our actions in life), or at least, it can be often misconstrued that way. One of my best friends from college has a massive vocabulary and subscribes to dictionary.com's "Word of the Day." I used to think he was being a bit snobbish when he's use some of the more esoteric words (whoops, looks like I might be slipping into it..."esoteric"...), but after talking to him about it, he just said he was expressing his thoughts the best way he knew how, with no intent of belittling his audience.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

I did come across as a snobby intellectual in high school for that reason.

OK, seriously, toastpaint.

I guess some men were born for dying, because living wasn't up to them. [/redwalls]

Me? I dunno. Probably to listen to as much awesome music as possible, then try to make some of my own. Or to write things and never finish them. Or to find somebody to love.

I've always wanted to be great at something, so like, people will be like, "Oh dude, that's a great _____!" Or "You're great at ____!" Or atleast be important/friends with everyone somewhere. That would be nice....

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I think the innermost reason to live, for anybody, is to love.

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A word needs people to love it, or else it might go crazy with time and slowly start plotting its bitter revenge to seek out and destroy all the people who stop speaking it.

Sorry. I'm a bit obsessed with my novel right now.

Anyway, I think if a word can be used and serves its purpose, then by all means, use it. Especially if it saves space. "Zeitgeist" is one of the "snobby foreign words," but I still use it, and lots of people use it, because there's not graceful word in English for "all the collective stuff that defines a period in history in terms of pretty much everything in it." And no, pop culture isn't it, because pop culture typically doesn't cover things like psychology and news events and whatnot.

Let's cite the "tingo" example here and move on.

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You look like you need a hug.
*hug*
There, now don't you feel better?

Oh so true

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Owner of The PlaystaionThWii60

To learn, to grow, to experience new things and contemplate new ideas. To make sense of the world in my own way and do with it what I will. My purpose in life is the never-ending discovery of itself.
[/philosophy major]

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To spread the Good News. I think that's the least I can do.

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My purpose in life is to [s]be Phil's girlfriend[/s] [s]become the greatest Pokemon master of all time[/s] [s]bend girders[/s] [s]help Zim take over the world[/s] [s]save the world from a terrible fate[/s] watch as many cartoons as possible, make as many cartoons as possible, and become either the next Matt Groening or a really awesome underground cartoonist with a cult following. Or both somehow.

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My reason to be (not any fancy foreign words mind you) is to be a good Christian, and/or be a musician, and/or get some job and support the world economy.

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No, I lied. I'm never going to have a good sig. So just forget about it.

Hmm... so then, Matt Crumb? R. Groening?

(If you don't know who R. Crumb is... umm... never mind.)

- Kef