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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   1565 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 31, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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"I very specifically use the term pregnant people, and very specifically added my pronouns at the end of my resignation letter to make the point

This sort of use of "specifically" really annoys me. A friend of a friend does that, and I can't stand it -- he's one of those people who fancies himself a real magickal person -- magic with a k -- who like "summons a speed spirit" to make his DoorDash order come quicker. He specifically annoys me.

Is this a leftist quirk? (I don't really care, but this is a post for questions, so I thought I ought to add a question)

It sounds like your acquaintance is using "specifically" when they mean to say "intentionally". There are few things more irritating than people using long words in an effort to sound educated, and compromising the effort by using the wrong ones. I find it even more embarrassing than using the correct word but mispronouncing it because you've only seen it written down - "get a load of this guy, he's literate!"

I see the use of specifically as perfectly cromulent!

I was just going to mention cromulent. I am old enough to have watched that Simpsons episode live, and didn't think about it for years until people started writing it in reddit. Then I've seen it in this very forum more than once, used in otherwise serious passages. I feel like anyway that cromulent may be more a word that that goddam word sonder.

sonder

It's wrong in so many ways. "sonder" in German isn't a noun. It's not even a real word. It can't stand on its own! You combine it with various other word-components to make a real word.

Some examples:

  • absondern: excrete
  • besonders: special
  • sonderlich: strange
  • sondern: but
  • Besonderheit: peculiarity

And if for some absurd reason it were a noun of its own, you'd be obliged to capitalize it. And then it still wouldn't mean what, according to Google, it supposedly means in English!

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