The Art Of Words

I have always loved languages.

One of the things I love about English that is absent in many other languages, is multiple words for things with only very slight differences in reality. The words are so precise, and thus require precision in their usage. A good example would be the words...

Slime, grime, mud, sludge, sleaze, dirt, and muck. All wonderful words, that can sometimes be used interchangeably, and other times mean almost opposite things.

How about grains, motes, bits, flakes, crumbs and dust?

At times you can spot the none native English speakers when they say something like, "crumbs of dust" instead of "grains of dust."

They say eskimoes have many, many words for snow. But English has many, many word for everything.

Take the derogatory terms for women,

Slut, skank, whore, and bitch.

A slut is a woman who will sleep with any man, and implies poor personal hygiene too. Though she may be of any socioeconomic class.

Whereas a skank is a woman of so low a class that she is not able to care for herself regardless her desire to do so.

And whore implies a woman whose body can be bought, usually for far less than it is worth. Implying low esteem.

Though the word "bitch" is losing it's sexual meaning, it originally meant something closer to "slut", as it's original meaning was a female dog in heat. Today it's used to say a woman is mean, and not empathetic.

There are even more derogatory words for men. Some are...

Chump, douche, jerk, doofus bozo, and loser.

Chump and doofus allude to low intellect, bozo to clownish demeanor, and jerk is the male equivalent of the female bitch. Loser has an implication of poor general economic performance.

Some of the words are so close in meaning and so nuanced, its a joy to watch a word artist use them correctly. Consider the words "nerd" and "geek"

Bill Gates is a geek, not a nerd, and Steve Jobs was a nerd, not a geek. Though both of them were jerks.

Knowing precise meanings, and then using the words correctly given those meanings, is an art.

Don't use such language

Why not?

Bunches of other languages have multiple ways to say very similar things, they concept of synonyms aren't just confined to english

One of the things I love about English that is absent in many other languages,

Yes, I shouldn't have said, "...that is absent in every other language,..." My bad.

Words are powerful and be crafted beautifully to form masterful pieces of art. They can also be lethal killers

In any psalm, I seek the soul of fellow brothers
In any hymn, I feel the spirits flood the chambers
With every word, my soul vibrates
As I feel the patriarchs that proclaim their faith
With every wind, I feel the lord

As the breeze carries me away from sin
And guides me to a divine light

And with every raindrop 
I know God's crying from sin across the world

And when his light shines
I shine with the holy spirit

Beautiful. Who is that?

And such beautiful non-sense.

The juxtaposition of sound and sense.

Me 

You wrote that? That is you?

Yes that is me. I self taught myself poetry and took advice from RessurgentExFavilla. Also am in AP Lang so I understand words and deeper meanings. My dad was a poet and my great grandfather was a Greek poet

Dig that!

What I like is that your talent can be used to convey the wondrous mystery that is faith in God. Many people have talent, but human talent bent to the purpose of God is a wonderful thing.

I have experience in writing on every topic really. I have written about the wonders of god, nature's beauty, depression, anxiety, and various other things.

I love listening and reading poems, and I like to implement styles from some great people, the Bible hymns are a great source

There was a French Poet who I like a lot, can't remember his name. I enjoy Langston Hughes uniqueness and talks about his struggles, Aligheri, and one of my favorites, Homer

My favorite Greek poets are Sophocles, Aristophanes, Kazantzakis, and Seferis

good

An amazing one syllable poem.

is it Japanese.

WOAh

Is that one, one or two syllables?

traver

There is no derogatory term exclusive to the male sex that's anywhere near as harmful as those directed towards women.

Fa**ot is probably the closest thing because of the tendency to think of that lifestyle as being worse when men do it (probably because it carries connotations of emasculation), meaning that a woman is less likely to be called this, and it is a very hurtful thing to be called if you belong to the class of person it describes.

But "cuck" or "small penis man" just doesn't carry the same weight. Not in 2020. A lot of young(ish) guys nowadays just don't care about whether that thing happening to dangle from our legs is particularly large or whatever size. Likewise, whether or not a woman would find its size appealing is also something we don't spend a lot of time thinking about.

I suppose there are still men for whom this is a sensitive topic. But mostly these are lesser men. For the most part, the traditional male-specific slurs have lost their sting.

Look, "skank" and "bitch" have the capacity to be cruel beyond imagination. It can be used to denote a person who (supposedly) has no value except as a fleshy object to be used, hurt and demeaned, the property of a man who holds her in utter contempt. It signifies the ultimate denial of human dignity.

Nobody deserves be treated that way.

Which hurts a woman more, being called a skank by another woman, or being called so by a man?

Actually, the words have no connotation of the woman being the property of a man, or that it is a man holding her in contempt.

A lot of young(ish) girls nowadays just don't care about whether that thing happening to dangle from our legs is a penis or a vagina. They call women skanks and bitches too. 

Route 99.

21 Jump Street

What's happening Johnny?

T       

4224T.

I am a wordsmith by profession, in English and French. English is the most verbose in its lexicon of any modern language, and in my experience in over 30 countries, those native-speakers find English to be beautifully spoken and delightful to hear. To me, Portuguese has those distinctions. English, for all its lexicon, sometimes is limited to single words for for things, and is a tough nut to crack for foreigners, mainly because, compared to French, for example, breaks most of its grammatical and spelling rules at the drop of hats.

Welcome.

All true. But to hear you pick Portuguese as having those distinctions was surprising.

As a professional wordsmith, recommend a work of literature you think is beautifully written, something in English but originally in another language is welcome.

Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum is my favorite all-around novel. [Original Italian, but I also own an English edition]