-
Today I explained to my students that "untact" will never, ever be used by English speakers because it sounds dumb, and also sort of sounds like "tactless," rather than what they think it means (which we have a perfectly good English term for: "socially distanced").Permalink On twitter.com
♻️ 2 Retweets Mood +5 🙂
-
Then I learned that, nope, the word in question is "on:tact" which apparently is sort of the etymological demonic spawn of "untact" + "online"; meaning, "socially distanced but connected online." Again, we have words to say this already: "online event," or "online contact."Permalink On twitter.com
-
I stressed that it's fine to use these new baffling words in Korean, but it sounds like bewildering nonsense to English speakers and if the coinage is English-based and really outlandish, it can communicate an unintended meaning to an English speaker.On twitter.com
-
They were surprised to learn these neologisms aren't in wide use in the English-speaking world... because are always being presented in roman letters, to lend them greater credibility and "flair". (Which is why EFL instructors especially hate these clunky, dumb neologisms.)Permalink On twitter.com
-
This is nothing new, of course: old men who don't speak English having been coining untenable English-root-word neologisms here for decades. But what's notable to me is that this is a second-order nonsense neologism etymologically rooted in a previous nonsense neologism.Permalink On twitter.com
-
(I'm not sure I've seen that before. Though maybe I have and it's just slipping my mind.)Permalink On twitter.com