to think I have strange vocab

[pinkhappy]

I recently moved to a new city. I had some new friends round and discovered that not one of them had heard of a (criminal) fence. This is a word that everyone I knew before would have known.

Then I was listening to the radio and they used the word antimacassar which I had never heard of. Turns out everyone in my new city knows it.

So, a poll. Do you know

1. what a (criminal) fence is only

2. what an antimacassar is only

3. both

4. neither

1. I know of both, but they would be pretty much equally unlikely to come up in conversation with anyone I know, regardless of background. Tbh, owing to both words being uncommon in normal conversation, I wouldn't consider them at all indicative of the vocabulary of any group of people, never mind the population of a whole city.

3 or me but a teacher said I'd never use a short word if a long one would do

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3

3

4

@pinkhappy

You don't have weird vocab, you need more learned friends. grin

It is weirdly disconcerting to see the blank look on people’s faces locally when I ask them what fence means. From this thread it seems most people do know the word so now it’s even stranger!

They might be making that face because they're wondering why on earth you're asking them if they know what words mean randomly

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3

I don’t have an exciting life, or antimacassars for that matter. I just read too much.

3

Don't they still have antimacassars on some trains?

By the way my auto-correct knows the word antimacassar so it must be current.

3, though come to think of it, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say antimacassar out loud. For all I know it's pronounced auntiemaisie.

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3
Are you going to add these up?

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I honestly though you were talking about strange accents and they were

1. A criminal offence (just missing off the o)

And

2.was an anti-masker (said in a strange accent).

I know what a fence is. I bought bacon and sausages from one once when I was a skint barmaid. The pub was the sort of place where blind eyes were regularly turned. My grandma had antimacassars too. She had 4 sons, she needed them. DM always said they were a bit antwacky though.

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I (and my children) have a very extensive vocabulary. DH and I have never dumbed down what we say for the children and as a result they know a lot of words that most children their ages wouldn’t know. I’m a primary teacher and I do the same at school. I make sure that children know that it is never a bad thing to ask what a word means. I also read a lot of ‘old’ classics (Austen, Dickens etc) so sometimes my speech patterns or turns of phrase seem a little bit outdated!

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I said 3, correctly, but I don’t think I’d use either of them in conversation either!

I also think antimacassar would make a good middle name for a posh person “James Alexander Antimacassar Montague-Brown”

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3 , normal common words , don't tend to crop up that often but I would think anyone would know them

1. I play Skyrim and my grandmother loved her antimacassars.

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