Does this sound oddly pretentious to anyone else?

[papie]

I don't know the poster so maybe she is a total sweetheart and I am a moody bitch.  But this is in response to a thread saying "What languages do you hear/use regularly?" on MM.


I work in an academic building at a well-known university and overhear
German, French, and Spanish classes pretty regularly. Walking across
campus I hear many more languages---Mandarin and Russian more often than
any others. Hebrew, once a week at least (but not conversational). I've
studied French, German, ancient Latin, classical Greek, and Finnish and
am really rusty, and nowhere near fluent, with all of them. I read
Finnish most frequently, but rarely have a chance to speak it. I can
also understand some Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Estonian
(yay, language groups!).

I have never heard anyone USING latin or ancient greek, other than the pope, lol.  It just sounds very "I'm supasmaht!" to me.  Maybe I am just bitter that I am not  polyglot, although if I count like her (and like my 5yo "Mommy, I really speak chinese for real, I can say Nihao!"), I guess I AM!

[papie]

Feb 26, 2013 14:02:23 GMT -5 @scottydeux said:

It just sounds like she's kind of proud of herself. Like languages are her niche.

My eyes got into rolling position, then stopped.

lol at "rolling position"

[snipsnsnails]

Aww, to be fair, she says she studied the Latin and Greek, so I assume the fluency in those is in the reading. And she admits that the similar language grouping accounts for some of her ability to understand. But take that from a pretentious person myself.

[papie]

Feb 26, 2013 14:04:28 GMT -5 snipsnsnails said:

Aww, to be fair, she says she studied the Latin and Greek, so I assume the fluency in those is in the reading. And she admits that the similar language grouping accounts for some of her ability to understand. But take that from a pretentious person myself.

I think I was mainly rolling my eyes because it was irrelevant to the question.  If it was "what languages do you know?" I wouldn't have given it a second thought. 

But I totally admit to being in a bitchy mood, so take it for what it is :-P

[Deleted]

I thought "well-known university" was a bit unnecessary, as if it makes her answer more valid than if she worked at a no-name university.

Other than that, I found the answer no more pretentious than the OP? The thread was kind of set up to be a pissing contest.

[cheeseandcrackers]

lol.. good for her i guess?

[papie]

lol v, you are probably right.

[Deleted]

I roll my eyes a bit at the "well-known university" part as if that has something to do with her awesome experience. Lots of campuses have this kind of cultural and linguistic diversity, not to mention actual big cities.

[papie]

Feb 26, 2013 14:06:13 GMT -5 kevin arnold said:

LOL! Kinda. But she was just answering the question though, right? I mean, this wasn't like her intro post or something. Because yeah, that would sound pretentious to just spout off apropos of nothing.

Well, not really, because she doesn't HEAR/USE all those languages regularly, does she?

[snipsnsnails]

You can use languages without speaking them - reading them is still using them. But I'm slightly antagonistic today and my 2 year old won't argue with me.

[papie]

Ok, I guess I took the question too literally and was laughing that latin and ancient greek could be heard/used regularly.


KOKO, nothing to see here. :-P

[papie]

Feb 26, 2013 14:09:05 GMT -5 snipsnsnails said:

You can use languages without speaking them - reading them is still using them. But I'm slightly antagonistic today and my 2 year old won't argue with me.

Well, yes, but who uses latin and ancient greek regularly???

I TOOK LATIN TOO.  lol

[papie]

Feb 26, 2013 14:12:04 GMT -5 Que? said:

Feb 26, 2013 14:06:13 GMT -5 kevin arnold said:

LOL! Kinda. But she was just answering the question though, right? I mean, this wasn't like her intro post or something. Because yeah, that would sound pretentious to just spout off apropos of nothing.

I just want to give you props for using 'apropos' correctly. It's a peeve.

Her answer was pretentious to me due to its wordiness and abundance of unnecessary details.

THANK YOU. 


:::flips hair and walks out of thread:::

[snipsnsnails]

Feb 26, 2013 14:10:04 GMT -5 papie said:

Feb 26, 2013 14:09:05 GMT -5 snipsnsnails said:

You can use languages without speaking them - reading them is still using them. But I'm slightly antagonistic today and my 2 year old won't argue with me.

Well, yes, but who uses latin and ancient greek regularly???

I TOOK LATIN TOO.  lol

Pretentious People!!!!

This is fun!

[papie]

lol

[papie]

qui bene amat bene castigat

[snipsnsnails]

Oh, and ftr, I'm jockeying between this post and a post about Vanderpump Rules (which no one will talk about!), so that probably disqualifies me from this post automatically. Ha!

[Deleted]

lol that blessed is pretentious. I've met her IRL and is one of the least pretentious people I know.

[Deleted]

oh, ANCIENT latin. as opposed to that newfangled latin they're speaking at all the roman disotheques nowadays.

[papie]

Feb 26, 2013 15:47:59 GMT -5 @blessed said:

Feb 26, 2013 14:06:00 GMT -5 v said:

I thought "well-known university" was a bit unnecessary, as if it makes her answer more valid than if she worked at a no-name university.

Other than that, I found the answer no more pretentious than the OP? The thread was kind of set up to be a pissing contest.

Sorry

I was totally just curious and I thought the variety of answers was interesting. I should've just kept it to the international board apparently. I'm probably the least pretentious person around, but maybe I don't come off that way in that post/online.

I didn't take your post as pretentious tbh, I actually replied to it.  I just agreed with V that it was set up for becoming a pissing contest, and it did. 

[Deleted]

I get Papie's point. You don't speak ancient latin (or, it seems, Greek). I don't know exactly what the Catholics do, but ancient Latin is -- oddly -- read out loud but not spoken? I get the side eye Papie. I'm with you. Only not as multilingual.