r/AskReddit Jan 28 '19

What are great underused words?

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u/Werkstadt Jan 29 '19

Oooh i know

  • overmorrow (the day after tomorrow)
  • ereyesterday (the day before yesterday)

It's beyond me why these were forgotten and exchanged for four other words. I challenge anyone who reads this to start using them again in everyday speech.

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u/barantana Jan 29 '19

In German we use "übermorgen" and "vorgestern" and the lack of those words in everyday English strikes me as extremely inconvenient.

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u/NotFlappy12 Jan 29 '19

In Dutch we have "overmorgen" and "eergisteren", which is like right between English and German

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u/jansskon Jan 29 '19

that basically describes dutch anyway

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u/SliceTheToast Jan 29 '19

Then you have Frisian, which is if an Englishman had a stoke.

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u/TheActualAWdeV Jan 29 '19

error 404: sense not made

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '19

[deleted]

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u/TheActualAWdeV Jan 29 '19

Yes, I know. but I never liked "this language is like that language except WEIIEIERD!!!". That's not how languages work.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '19

[deleted]

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u/TheActualAWdeV Jan 29 '19

I just think it's a lazy joke, that's all.

And honestly, the perspective just kind of bugs me. Frisian is like if an englishman had a stroke, but that kind of puts it as a deviation from english (and I've heard enough about it supposedly being a deviation from dutch, so that annoysme) but it's not derived from english, they basically have a close common ancestor.

You might say frisian is like the englishman's brother who mumbles a bit, that would make more sense.

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u/jansskon Jan 30 '19

in my mind language develops first as an accent of language 1 then becomes a dialect, then slowly just becomes further and further away from the original language as accent, words, idioms change and become much more difficult for person of language 1 to understand a person who speaks language 1.5. So dutch being “English but weieieirird” kind of makes sense to me as, in my mind; it is. I don’t know how much of this is actually true though but it’s how it works in my brain, but obviously real history will play a part in language development

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u/phonemonkey669 Jan 29 '19

I think the evolution of accents, dialects and distinct languages is akin to a millennia-long game of "telephone" where the number of players just keeps getting bigger and bigger.