Native English speakers: is the word "dull" considered colloquial?
 

I have to write a fairly informal review as an exercise for my english lessons. It's informal, but I don't think it should be colloquial. So is "dull" considered colloquial? And if it is, what words expressing the same idea are not considered so?

"Boring" would be a better choice of word, in my opinion.

stultifyingly misinformed is always good too.

hmm i've actually already used "boring" in the same sentence: the boring life of dull people. though it might induce an interesting repetition effect...

:D

also, is the expression "pun intended" colloquial?

I wouldn't say it was colloquial; I'd say it was preferable over boring.'Dull' exists in the realm of metaphor - as in 'this knife is dull', extended to whatever your object is; 'boring' implies subjective dislike, which is far less 'proper' to formal writing.

It all depends on what you want to say and the context, of course - if you're looking for a shiny word, something like 'insipid', 'fatuous' or 'vapid' are in a similar field, but pack a bit more punch. As it is 'dull' is fine, I'd imagine - it does conjure the image of something which isn't even bad enough to merit a more deleterious word.

i don't think dull is colloquial, i think boring is actually closer to being colloquial

I wouldn't say 'pun intended' was colloquial - it is, however, massively hackneyed and seems patronising. Either the irony is apparent or it needs re-writing, there's no need to obviate bad writing.

I should also note that there are quite a few 'non-native English speakers' on this forum whose opinion on this matter would count for a lot more than the average 'native English speaker'.

Okay, thanks a lot! This helps me much :)

really? I was actually thinking in that case - it's not proper grammar, just the way a word is considered -, people using these words would probably help me more ... - especially since my teacher is English as well. I might be wrong, of course...

What if William Shakespeare replied?

That's a fair point - I was more getting at the fact that people like yourself have a better command of the language most people who post here. You're entirely right, of course, but I would say that if you're writing from the perspective of a Frenchman, it seems pretty pointless avoiding what you perceive to be colloquialisms because you just don't have access to that understanding of English.

To the best of my knowledge, William Shakespeare wasn't a fan of Sonic Youth. Some historians disagree on this point, but I tend to point to the fact that he's been very dead for hundreds of years.

Actually, you're right; in that particular case, though, it was important - though you couldn't guess it -, as this course is a preparation for Cambridge's Certificate in Advanced English - which will be corrected by English people.

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I think the reason why Non-native English speakers might use a better English than native speaker might be the fact that we tend to learn a "literary" English, rather than everyday's English. I believe the same constatation may be applied to virtually every language - I'm pretty sure someone who's studied French abroad would speak a better French than me, as there are loads of conjugations that slowly disappear, while some language deformations keep on appearing - but that's the way a language evolve, I guess . I'm not talking about the SMS language, which is clearly absurd (:p), though (and it looks really, really ugly in French - far worse than English)

ahah!

non, j'ai etudie le francais pour cinq ans en canada, c'est maaaaaaal

Le 'thread' ici sont est pour parle en Francais mal.

Tu entends, ma amis?

je pense, que c'est : entendez-vous mes amis

J'entendez belle, M. Esque il y a pas de probleme?

fiche le camps, tu es mechante

votre conjugation avoir les erreurs, c'est "j'entends" avec le "z" ces't comme "vous entendez"

je pense