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   Alexandre Oliva (lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jul-2026 02:51:22 JST Alexandre Oliva

   in reply to

   • Robert Kingett
   does this apply to english alone, or to other languages too?
   
   as a non-native english speaker, brazilian portuguese native, I often find myself going for the longer, Latin-derived words that are similar in portuguese and english, rather than to the shorter anglo-saxon ones. I've been presumed arrogant over this shortcoming, but I find that presuming ableism on top is itself ableist and racist against latinos.
   
   back when I was at school, having a richer vocabulary was regarded as a good thing. nowadays it seems that having a poorer vocabulary is more valued, but not only that, you have to have the right poor vocabulary. if your poor vocabulary prefers the longer cognate words with your other languages, it still sucks 😞
   
   • Embed this notice
     Robert Kingett (weirdwriter@caneandable.social)'s status on Sunday, 26-Jul-2026 02:51:23 JST Robert Kingett

     This recent hashtag TikTok discourse wherein they belittle authors for using words that have more than three syllables, arguing that large word usage is ableism, has a whiff of racism to it. I know that there are aspects of relying on the written word has ties to white supremacy, but there’s just something about this discourse that rings like racism to me and none of the Youtubers I’ve seen talking about this issue have been pointing out the racism.

     For those not in the know, a lot of TikTok readers across multiple genres are saying that authors are ablest if we use words that contain more than three or four sylables.