: Re: Finding the right insults As a non-native Anglophone, it can be a bit more of a challenge to do creative writing in English. Thesauri have helped me a lot, improving sentences like "Sokka caught

@Berumen699

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Twit is not unfamiliar to Americans and usually is a childish insult. A Dunce is a person who is incapable of learning (not necessarily because he/she is stupid, as will be discussed in a moment) and is usually used to refer to a child of primary/elementary school age (5-10). The term doesn't ordinarily reflect intelligence, as the term entered into American Lexicon as a form of school punishment where the child was essentially given a time out for acting out in class and was made to stand in a corner while wearing the Dunce Cap, a tall conical hat made from paper, with the word "Dunce" "Dummy" or letter "D" written on the side facing the class. Being labled the "Dunce" was not desirable and would lead to teasing by peers, thus enforcing good behavior to avoid. Most activities that would merit the punishment were class room disruptions, not poor grades or marks or incorrect answers. Although no longer in use, many American Cartoons will use the Dunce Cap as a quick way to convey the character's inability to learn or out right stupid moments to the audience, and traveled with American Pop culture. It's not a strong insult.

English is plagued with many regional terms (It's not the only one, as Portuguese is different between it's home land and the variant spoken in Brazil and American Spanish is different enough from European Spanish that English Film companies will dub their films into both varients for international releases). English has a higher degree of it as British, American, Australian, and New Zealand English all have unique words... American and British English are both very well known to all English speakers, due to it's media dominance (Americans and Brits are aware of each others usage, and make jokes mocking the difference all the time. Kiwis only recently favored their own accents and usage over "Broadcast English" which attempted to sound as British as possible. Australians also have some weird turns of phrases and usage of language, but it's not unintelligible as it's portrayed and the rougher nature is mostly everyone else is more mocking Austrailia's nature as a former penal colony more than anything. There's also a Canadian accent which isn't all that known as it's 99% the same as American English (they use British spelling) and only Americans are allowed to mock (for reference, it's an American accent, accept all long O sound like they do in "boot", all questions end with the verbal tick "eh?" and "Sorry" (which sounds like "Soar-ry") needs to be injected everywhere in the line. As for why only Americans are allowed to mock it, it's more to do with American and Canadians tend to argue about who's country is better, but that's because of their strong friendship.).

Edit: Thesauri are great to find words with both similar and opposite meaning, but if you aren't familiar with it, dictionaries will have a more nuanced usage and speak to how appropriate it is. For a quick example, the suggestion of "Dork" is a lot mild in the late 2010s then it was in the past. As recently as the 1980s, it wasn't used on television as it was another word for "penis" though that meaning is largely archaic these days, and it's usually a mild put down said among children and is fine for kids tv these days. There's also a lot of weirdness due to English having a high concentration of Loan Words, mostly for being the bastard love child of German and French.

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