People's vocabularies.
 

Over this last weekend, I've come across people who did not know what the words pithy or transgression meant. I understand this is kind of an condescending complaint, but I don't consider these tough words at all and these people in question are the kinds that I would expect better of.

What is the deal?

It IS a very condescending complaint. Those words are not used in everyday language often. Especially pithy.

What is the deal? Hate to be the bringer of the news but the deal is you! Smoke some pot and just relax dude.

I've never heard the word pithy in my life.

I hear the word trangression pretty often. I've only heard pithy a couple times in my entire life...

It means tersely cogent.

What a pithy.

How do you react when someone talks to you and uses one or several words that you don't know?

Curious.

I usually ask what the word means.

Personally, I jus' be usin' dem dere context clues!

If everyone were forced to read 19th century novels, there would be no vocabulary complaints.

I'll happily claim I have no fucking idea what either mean, but I'm still probably more intelligent than the lot of you.

\m/

I really don't consider vocabulary necessarily indicative of a person's level of intelligence. And smart idea can be expressed in fifteen or five words but will still be smart. A dumb idea in the same way will still be dumb.

But I really am surprised by what I consider high school level vocabulary.

I agree with you this far.

i don't remember anyone ever using pithy. but i come from florida, so that can be a reason why.

I've noticed over the past several months that my own vocabulary has slipped dramatically. Sometimes, I get annoyed when I settle with expressing myself as being very, totally this or that, when contextually I can tell that with more effort I probably could have come up with another way. Etc. I do loooove when I hear someone throw in a word Im not familiar with, though it usually takes me several attempts to actually cement it into my slow-ass brain.

I dont really judge others on something like this at all though.
Maybe linguistics is just not a major part of their communication. Maybe they just want to get the point accross - people can still connect thru that. People that are so simple as to measure their intelligence by comparing their vocab to others' are just plain dicks.

I really just get annoyed when people talk like they have never even tried to think before speaking, like when words are coming so fast out of some bitches mouths about cute pants cute dogs cute shoes that you cant help but drop words altogether and wish you just had a shotgun to ram down her throat instead.

I've never heard the word pithy before.

Transgression, plenty of times.

I've heard pithy in college, but not in the public's vocabulary. Transgression on the other hand, multiple times.

a) They simply haven't come across the word(s).

b) They have better things to do than to pay attention to useless synonyms.

c) Like me, they just pretend not to know words, so they can snicker to themselves at the speaker's frustration.

d) They are unintelligent.

e) It was probably a combination of a and b, but I felt like throwing in more because I'm putting off a pithy slice of homework pie.