Big-Worderitis - Is there a Cure?

I have it, I have it bad. And I don't know what to do.
Maybe it comes from beign a foreign speaker? I was always encouraged to use big words.

I don't choke people, I suffocate them. Then I don't avoid the consequences, but circumvent them, unobstrusively. I'd hesitate to elaborate on the ramifications of this mannerism - but I need help.
This style doesn't work any when you try to write let's say a child. My current problem exactely.

How do I get back those fine compund verbs and small adjectives to put around nouns of preferrably 4-5 letters? Looking up alternatives with my leo.dict helps but it is no real solution.

Help?

 

If you have any young neices, nephews, cousins, etc., you could hang around with them on a weekend, taking them to a park (weather permitting), and just have a conversation with them. Really listen to their answers to your questions (your inquiries should be of the type that cannot be answered "yes" or "no"). You can also read a few children's books that are aimed at the age you are trying to write to get you into the mindset of small words.

 

I have the same problem, Lanna - native polysillabic Spanish doesn't help and my backgroung in writing scientific papers either...

For canon characters at first I made lists of words they used (and didn't use) in the movies, for OCs I just go with my guts, trying to remember that, in the end, they're not speaking English but Basic and that it must have a lot of variations from planet to planet. But I agree with you that child-speak is the most difficult thing.

 

Instead of using dict.let, Lanna, try thesaurus.com. It might help with choosing different words for the big words.

Try thinking like a child.
It works -- it really does. Or watch a movie where children play a major figure and just listen to them speak.

 

Alexis - The only way I'd get in contac with children of that age, would be waylaying one at his way home from school. Somehow I doubt that would be socailly acceptable.
I considered books, but since all books for children in libraries here are in German, that's not so much of a help. And I don't really consider buying any.

Golden_Jedi - German is reknows for its tendency to just put long words together to make even longer words. Schifffahrtsgesellscahft, Überrollbügel, Warentrennblock, Gummibärchenorakel. Scientific papers are fun. At least you can use words like heliocentirc there without geting weird looks.

Ce - I don't think your daugfhter will make it to the age I need this year, no? Too bad. thesaurus com usually drieves me nuts. At least it seems to have an automaic filter that makes things ToS compliant. Thinks like a child.
Films are not good. they are in German, remember? You live here, too.

 

Mel, I sort of meant english kiddie movies.
I have a few so if you're in need -- I'm the source. For the movies.

I use thesaurus every day. It's a great program when you need different sort of words and it shows you antonyms.

And nah...I don't think Lilly will be the right age this year. I mean, she talks. A lot. A WHOLE lot. Way too much sometimes. But it's still gibberish more or less. A mixture between German and English words. Cute but gibberish.

And Barney...*shudders* Evil incarnate!

 

I find that I just write, and as I go, if I find that I just haveto be pontifical, it never hurts for 'Pem' to say in her journal something like:

Tam, we had a big meeting today with all of Pay-pa's fellow Masters, and they said they had to 'circumnavigate (I had to look that up - it means to go around, like) the crisis' with the weird people who still think the Empire was a good thing,(like that mean old *bad word*) Miss Vissen...

*Sorry, I've also got a bad case of diarrhea of the word doc these days!!*


And yes, 'she' puts in the phrase *bad word* when she wants to swear...

 

Even monosylabic words can be a problem if they are not in common usage. Irritated, or ticked off, are much more common than, say, vexed.

Sometimes, the best way to go is with a good beta, who can read over the problem areas and advise you on better ways to phrase things. I love my betas.

 

I can relate, mavjade. I wasn't allowed to do 'baby-speak' when I grew up because my sis insisted on teaching me to speak 'right'. I got whacked one each time until I substituted 'Wauwau' with 'Hund'. See, I don't even know what English kids say before they say dog.
And there's a game I play with my best friend called 'leaving out foreign/educated words. Conversation tends to get slow then.

Okay, Ce, bring me some on Monday, I can strand it. I am sure I can.
Does Pooh count? I got some Pooh...

Breezy - I just tried to put 'discriminate' into the story. I did the misspell+ half misinterpret routine. Cool youth speak. It's what has me worried. But I try to pull a Williams on that. Without actually stealing 'chizz', 'scan', and 'ho dszang'.

Lilith - what about swallow? I also have to remember adults don't look exasperated to the kid. And what would 'embarrassed' be for a child? this is all so difficult.

 

In "Pem Speak": it would be "And I got all red and stuff,"

 

Yeah, I know... I even had Schprachdiplom from the BRD Kultusministerkonferenz once upon a time! Now I'm just amazed I can even remember that.

 

Swallow's a common enough word. Granted, most kids might not pronounce it right, but every kid's heard it often enough while learning to feed themselves.

As for emotions that a kid might not understand, I'd go with Breezy's idea and explain the physical symptoms, instead of the emotion behind them. Tight lips, tired eyes, face going red (or green, or grey, or puce as required by the species in question), that sort of thing.

 

To bad the prank was supposed to make somebody else be all embarrassed. Well, good thing that you can't trip somebody in a hoverchair. That would be discriminalisation or something anyway, meaning it's almost a crime. Probably.

Describing body language is a good solution foe the emotions of others, though. Too bad Jedi are not supposed to be angry. they are 'not happy' instead.


Sprachdiplom? I am impressed Golden_Jedi.

 

Oh Pem gets 'mad' all the time! She's also very familiar with 'Ma-mere's lips getting all thin'.

Jedi or no, children are children, not robots, and don't forget what things kids will laugh at things that adults will try not to (like *farts*! and it's no sin if you as an adult giggled when you read that - I did too!)

 

It's even funnier cuz you're screen name is "Darth Breezy"

 

I'll bring you something nice to watch on Monday, Mel. And Pooh doesn't count.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

Beyond hanging out with/watching kids, the best I can offer is proof-read and edit out all big words. I've spent enough time around kids to know that they don't know what the big ones mean, but they'll ask what they mean, but not look them up.

 

Well, I do remember when my brother was about six, he surprised the hell out of me by casually using "inconspicuous" correctly in a sentence. Which doesn't prove anything. but rather serves as a reminder that you should never assume anything about children. They know both more and less than you think they do.

As far as vocabulary goes ? or the lack of it, rather ? one thing to keep in mind is that most of the things we use words to communicate, kids use facial expressions and body language to communicate. So in a conversation, were you would say, "He was completely exasperated as we ran away.", a kid would say, "And he looked at me like this" - makes a face - "And we were like" - laughs - "SO scared, and then we ran around back and hid."

 

Yodimus stole my thought...don't assume that just because they're kids that they won't know big words. I went to one of them thar' fancy private schools and I had a rather large multi-syllabic vocabulary far beyond my supposed age range. Everybody's different!

 

The only problem that I have with using movies as a study guide is that sometimes they "grow" the kids up, so to speak. Most movies that star kids (Matilda comes to mind) are usually about the extraordinary ones - and so sometimes, those kids have vocabularies and affect mannerisms that are far beyond the norm.

Or the kid dialogue is dumbed down, which is equally unhelpful.

BUT, Calvin and Hobbes (a comic series by er.. Bill Waterson, is it?) is a perfect example of the way a six year old would act, or someone in that age range. Granted, Calvin does display an unusually high level of intelligence and vocabulary at times, but at the heart of things, he is a six year old boy, and acts like it.

 

Another good 5 - 6 year old book series is Barbara Park's "Junie B. Jones" series... but then you probably can't get them in English in Germany I wish I had the books my son had when he was 5 and 6 , I'd PM you with a few things that had particularly good childspeak

 

We can get english books in Germany, Alexis. Goodness -- just imagine! Lanna and I wouldn't have anything to read. Ack, the horror!
Thank God for the internet and the English speaking section at the bookstore.

 

Yeah, it's the other way around actually. Just try getting an originally-foreign-language book, of any kind, in the States.
SO. ANNOYING.

There's one in particular that I've been dying to get my hands on, which seems to have gotten great reviews in other countries, and three years later, they still haven't gotten around to bothering witha US publishing date. What, are trees an endangered species all of the sudden?! And even the ones where the publisher does make english-language editions quickly, they still get to prance and hop about England for months and months if not years on end before, grumbling, they make their way across the freakin pond. If they even do at all.

But enough about that. We were talking about children or something?

 

We were, but I still don't want to buy children's books just because. Except if Dr. Seuss counts? I always wanted a reason to buy his books.