Whatcha Readin'?

[Typhoid]

Originally Posted by Vampyr

That's one of my favorite things about English, just how mashed up and crazy it is. There's actually a movement out there to remove all the duplication and non-nonsensical parts, but I think that would kill the beauty of the language.

I was talking to my dad about something to that effect [he gave me the book]. He said he was talking to a Chinese guy who said "English is so hard because you have so many duplicate words for things. Like small. You have so many ways to say it."

But then I made the point to my dad that there is only one way to say small - small. There are things like 'tiny' and 'miniscule', but those don't really mean small. It's a measurement scale that's signified in words. You wouldn't say "It was a tiny battleship", but you'd say "It was a small battleship", because 'tiny' would portray being palm-sized, while small would signify that it's smaller than normal, or large, while still being big in context of battleships.

Fascinating.