Rarely Used Words. what do you think about them?

[guhati 0]

Guys guys. just wanted to let you know that, we are talking about words getting "extinct" not like erasing it from our dictionary. So far the discussion is heading to very good debate. I like that. Now that we are talking about making of words, lets just say that, it will get recognition if it sounds cool, it is the same deal with the word noob, it is not a real word, it just sounds cool when talking about it. The real word is nub. So guys have fun debating.

[rogerthecamel 1]

The real word for noob is newbie which isn't a word itself anyway. The word nub means something completely different:

nub noun 1 (the nub) the crux or central point of a matter. 2 a small lump or protuberance.

DERIVATIVES nubby adjective.

ORIGIN apparently from dialect knub protuberance, from Low German.

Explain what you mean by words being "extinct" but not erasing them from our dictionary? They are hardly extinct if they are still part of the language but not really used.

[Tenshi 0]

Interesting topic, to a length a word can get endangered but it can never get extinct. Languages are like fashion, one minute a certain word is in and the next that word is out. But just because we do not use a particular word does not mean that everyone else does not, i particularly detest the people who use the text message lingo so in a way I am "preserving" the right way of writing in the English language. Now certain languages are hardly spoken yet they exist in it's entire glory, Latin is still spoken by many people plus is used in scientific names, Sanskrit is also spoken by people though few in number but all of the holy scriptures are still in Sanskrit and there are MANY people who learn the language simply to read it in its original format.Now coming to the topics of synonyms & homonyms, languages are tools for our expressing minds therefore we normally use the words we "like"or "prefer". And many times while we are using our favorite words we discover new ones that mean the same. Dictionaries add new words instead of removing the old words so unless they start removing the words while new ones it is difficult for a language to go extinct especially English.

[rogerthecamel 1]

The problem with this logic is that you list all the languages you know to still be in use despite being old or out of common use. To be truly extinct they would be by definition unknown and unable to be used as examples. For example, what language did the people living in the Central African region speak 5000 years ago long before any kind of record was made of their words. Because languages are constantly changing it would be highly likely that there are words and entire languages from places like this that are no longer used or even recorded.For this reason it has to be true that some words and languages have become completely extinct over the passage of time.

[webishqiptar 0]

This is a very interesting topic. If you see from another point of view, I would add that every language evolves, and evolving means loosing some characteristics or features and gaining new ones. So I think languages are set to this rule. This means that from time to time we loose words and gain new ones. So some names that we used to give or call our grands are not used anymore at recent times. So spoken language can change and evolve and so do the words.

[Tenshi 0]

The problem with this logic is that you list all the languages you know to still be in use despite being old or out of common use. To be truly extinct they would be by definition unknown and unable to be used as examples. For example, what language did the people living in the Central African region speak 5000 years ago long before any kind of record was made of their words. Because languages are constantly changing it would be highly likely that there are words and entire languages from places like this that are no longer used or even recorded.
For this reason it has to be true that some words and languages have become completely extinct over the passage of time.

The thing I mean to say is that spoken language might vanish but some one or the other holds onto the written language in one way or another. Now the language in Central Africa might be dead to us because we do not know anyone who speaks the language but then again we do not know everyone in this world therefore how can we be sure that the language does not exist among the descendants. I agree that there are languages that are dead now but that also means that the people who spoke that language are extinct too.

[rogerthecamel 1]

Well yes, its unlikely a language or word can ever become extinct if one of the speakers of the language/word is still alive, their brain will hold a record of the word that could come back at any time. Unless they somehow got amnesia or something but that is special circumstances.

[Gravity17 0]

Nope, because some retard will bring it up again lol, and think about the large database of dictionary.com and a physical dictionary, those will be there for ever and no one will ever forget them XD

[rob86 2]

Well, when is a word a word? If I say some random bunch of letters and use it to describe something. An Omahibajoba (noun): A really cool person. Let's say people here like my new word, and it catches on. It might even be added to a big dictionary. That'd make it a word, right?What if nobody likes my word, and it fades away as quickly as it was created? Was it still a word, or just a bunch of random letters made up by me? What if you nobody cares about my word, but in 50 years, it's still stuck in your brains even if you don't consciously remember it. Does that mean it's gone? What if scientists come up with a way to extract information from a brain? What if I make a tpyo ? I just made a spelling mistake. You knew what I meant though, didn't you? Tpyo has a meaning, a search on google reveals those letters have been used before and mean the same thing: Is it a word?Anyway, assuming vocabulary isn't passed on through genes and we don't know it, I think words can become extinct. Words have to be maintained, kept alive, as does almost everything. If it isn't then it will be forgotten and become extinct and cease to exist. Does speaking a word make it exist, or does merely knowing it make it exist, though? Let's say there's an all powerful being who hates the word "blah". Anyone who speaks or writes the word blah will be zapped and killed. Everyone therefore never speaks that word, even if they know it. After that generation dies , assuming nobody has used it, then within a generation the world will be extinct since nobody will have heard of it. I think it won't be extinct until then because people knowing the word and avoiding using it means it exists.What if Earth blows up and we're all exterminated. Then, on a planet in a galaxy far, far away, a new species not so unlike ours is growing. Because we're similar, they eventually words similar to ours, not just english, but any human language. Eventually, by complete chance, some words might be the same and even have the same definition. Does that mean the word has become non extinct? No, it means there's a new word that happens to be the same, nobody would know though. I think the difference between words and everything else is that just having the words in your brain, thinking them, keeps them alive. What a rambling nonsense post this (mine) was.. lol

[moutonoir 0]

It's hard to predict whether a word will become extinct or not, since some random person just needs to start using it all of a sudden in order for it to be "revived" again. While a word may be really unpopular now, if a famous writer throws it around in his/her writing, it can become well-known once again.We were discussing something along these lines in my linguistics class; it was very interesting. We were also talking about tenses of words changing and saying things like how "dreamt" was being replaced by "dreamed." It's interesting to thing that language is constantly changing and evolving like this.

[harrison858 0]

In my opinion, I think that you couldn't tell which words are extinct, you can just tell which words are rarely used. If you know a word that has become extinct, then chances are, the word is not extinct.Just like someone said, a word cannot become extinct until all records and memories of it have been lost. So chances are that there are plenty of extinct words out there that we wouldn't know about.

[outburst 0]

I don't really see why a word couldn't become extinct. But, if you don't know about the word, you'll never know that it's actually extinct. And, if you remember it, then it isn't extinct. It's sort of confusing, I guess, but I think words have probably just disappeared before.In this day and age, though, of transfer and storing information, I think it could be quite difficult just to "lose" a word and let it become extinct. You'd have to actively try to get rid of a word, I would guess. That would be hard to do, though. We have the internet - we have dictionaries - we have the merging of the two in online dictionaries.

[iGuest 3]

The way I see it is this, The definition of extinct is "No longer in use" as well as "No longer existing or living"which in turn means that the word is no longer said. So no I do not believe your arguments on how a word could possibly become extinct for the soul fact that there are over 5 billion people in the world and 5 million or more living right here in the United States. Yes everyday our language evolves and people make new words. But still that does not mean that the older words will simply be ripped from our dictionaries it is just simply stating that the dictionary will continue to grow as new words are created. So therefor if the word is not wiped clean from our dictionary then it still exists because it is 1: Still in use for the sole fact that Websters and other co. Reprint and produce a new dictionary every what 10 years I think it is, so if there rewriting the dictionary that means they rewrite the words which still puts it in use because there writing it and 2: If it is strictly printed in the Dictionary then it is still existing and it is still a living word. So therefor no it is impossible for a word to simply go extinct, weather we say the word or hear the word ever again. Any comments as to my statement? 

[missalex 0]

I think rarely used words will become extinct because they are not used anymore and they will be forgotten. Also, I agree, there are new words they even replace old words. My friends actually tried making up their own word, which then became extinct since people didn't use it anymore, but it was pretty awsome while it did exist.

[Bikerman 2]

I think rarely used words will become extinct because they are not used anymore and they will be forgotten. Also, I agree, there are new words they even replace old words. My friends actually tried making up their own word, which then became extinct since people didn't use it anymore, but it was pretty awsome while it did exist.

I think there is an evitable abrogation of abstruse lexiphany, which is egregious and may engender epistemological indolence in multitudinous idiolects and endemic inexactitude in allusive efficacy.