{"id":635,"date":"2026-04-10T01:03:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T01:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/?p=635"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:14:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T01:14:45","slug":"on-language-use-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/on-language-use-5\/","title":{"rendered":"On language use (#5)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It might be the case that there is something to say about some languages being inherently better suited for expressing deeper emotional dispositions than other languages. Let us consider a simple example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In the Dutch language it might be possible to arive at a point in a conversation where one of the speakers might exclaim &#8220;subtle!&#8221; (&#8220;Subtiel!&#8221;) as a judgement on the lack of refinement of the interlocuters&#8217; (use of) language.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Where in the British language it is not a stretch to imagine the following exchange:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8230;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;He made subtle use of &#8230;&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Where &#8220;subtle&#8221; is used as a noun on the Dutch language in English it can be used as a adjective. The adjective is also used in Dutch &#8220;een subtiele behandeling&#8221; (a subtle treatment) but it sounds a bit clunky in Dutch, whereas the Brit can choose between &#8220;subtle treatment,&#8221; &#8220;carefull treatment,&#8221; &#8220;&#8230; tentatively.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So where a conversation in Duth has at its high point the exclamation &#8220;subtle!&#8221; in English it is more commonly just a adjective which makes English conversation more &#8220;smoothly flowing.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It might be the case that there is something to say about some languages being inherently better suited for expressing deeper emotional dispositions than other languages. Let us consider a simple example: Where in the British language it is not a stretch to imagine the following exchange: Where &#8220;subtle&#8221; is used as a noun on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[85,86],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language","tag-subtle","tag-tentative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}