this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2025
25 points (85.7% liked)

No Stupid Questions

42254 readers
1008 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

methinks i should learn the tongue of the old masters.... it would be most wondrous.

top 29 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 hours ago

Other than in some very niche and select circumstances that I honestly can't really think of, nobody is going to think it's cool. However if you like it and want to do it then that's really more important than if others will think it's cool. However, I should add some caveats to that.

In some environments, if you're young than school especially, can be very cruel and very conformist. In those sorts of environments, being "weird" can seriously make you miserable because you'll be ostracised and while being authentic and true to yourself is important you'll need to decide how important this specifically is to you, because if it's not that important then in a context like school I'd say don't risk it.

However if you want to try it out sometimes around friends who already like you then why not? Just try to keep an eye on people's reactions and see if they start to get tired of it or roll their eyes or visibly cringe, that's a sign you're doing it too much and it's getting irritating. Definitely don't change your entire speech pattern to whatever you decide equates to "old timey", all the time in every conversation with everyone, it won't land well.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

You'll probably be viewed as weird unless you dress appropriately. Start wearing a cravat and carrying a pocket watch and see if that helps.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Pocket watches are cool! Bring back clockwork!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 hours ago

You'll absolutely be judged.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

How old-timey were you aiming? Because "it would be most wondrous" sounds more like Bill and Ted.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Speaking grammatically without using any slang or jargon will get you most of the way there, I think!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 hours ago

The real answer is that it depends on your age. Probably also race and gender. People will react differently to each.

An older adult ready for retirement? Delightful!

A kid trying to be different and impress girls! Cringey.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 hours ago

"Stop trying to make fetch happen"

Everyone has their own verbal idiosyncrasies- local dialects, accents, words and phrases you picked up somewhere that have a nice ring to them, in-jokes with your friends and family, etc.

You'll come by them organically, no need to force it.

Inevitably, when you try to force them, at best people just won't notice, or more likely they will notice and think you're a weirdo, or a pretentious asshole, and at worse they might actually have a hard time understanding you which kind of defeats the purpose of speaking in the first place.

Seek out new experiences, acquire knowledge at every opportunity, meet people, go places, do things. Without even trying your speech will acquire plenty of interesting character and you won't have to expend any effort to do so.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Learn some of those phrases, and use them to have some fun. Don’t do it all the time though. Just mix and match in a tasteful way. You can also mess around with dialects. Just don’t overdo it, because it can get distasteful very easily.

Ideally, you would find the expressions you consider useful or interesting, and start using them occasionally. For example, the Aussie style “No worries” is pretty good IMO.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Wait until you get older and one day you'll realize the kids are looking at you funny when you talk. Then you'll realize you naturally talk "oldtimey" and your youth is gone.

Enjoy not being an old fart while you can and don't wish to become one ahead of time. Trust me on that one, it's not groovy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 hours ago

thanks so much!

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Nobody will appreciate it.

Don't get me wrong, If you want to come over and we hang out and talk old timey, that would be fun, but trust me, most people will just think there's something wrong with you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Unless you have a waxed mustache, dress mostly in sharp well tailored cloths, preferably with a vest. And have a lexicon the size of the east alantatic with a grasp of grammar to match.

If you don't fix the visual idea of the words you speak people will almost always assume your untrustworthy, up to something, lying or in some other way fake.

Our words as much as our appearance need to match both ourselves and those around us to be seen as trustworthy.

It's one of those small things you don't really thing about.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 hours ago

To answer the latter half of your question, no, people will not think you're cool for doing this. Some will be majorly put off by it. Some miiight not be entirely too cringed out by it, but they still won't think you're cool just cuz of this. Your best bet is to be yourself and find the people who think that's cool, whether that includes talking oldtimey or not.

How old oldtimey are we talking btw? Just out of curiosity lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Communication is a two way street.

Good communicators need to learn to pick up on how their speech lands, and learn how to adapt a little accordingly.

I doubt the internet is a good place to learn that skill. It takes a lot of real world practice, and a lot of people still get it wrong from time to time, way into adulthood.

But you should do whatever you like for yourself. But just try to be sensitive to the audience and prepared to adjust if you start to see reactions that you don't like.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 hours ago

Do what you enjoy. Yes people will judge. You would be hard pressed to find a whimsical passtime that people do not judge. What matters is if you are living your life how you want to.

I also guarantee you will make somebody's day.

As long as you can communicate appropriately for the situation (I.E. an emergency, to perform your job adequately, or for serious discussions) I don't think it matters in the long run what others think.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

My thought is when it comes to communication it's always best to be clearly understood by the greatest amount of people in your audience. The flourish of your language/ vocabulary should come secondary.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

Flourish was the word I wanted! Yeah, don't be a dork OP. Nothing wrong with tossing out the occasional old-timey word when it fits. I talk like a redneck Southerner, but occasionally show off my vocabulary with a word or French phrase.

"Hell yeah I love fucking with antique shotguns! It's my raison d'être some nights!"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 hours ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

I love the 1864 goth girl.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

"...he's passed..."
i entirely lost my shit laughing lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

We all love the 1964 goth girl

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

except for her husband, who apparently prefers to sow seed in the other melon patch

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

Crushing on the rightmost girl! Perfectly in character. Perfect moves trying not to laugh.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

Thanks for that!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

This is the kind of thing where the worst you can do is be a little cringy. Why not

I've started saying therein, thereto, therewith etc, because i feel like it makes it easier to build a sentence and it's also easier to pronounce than the alternatives.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Yeah. If you're into it, do it. Never turn down a chance to learn something or develop a skill. Pick your audience when using a skill though. You may be able to juggle 5 balls, but a funeral probably isn't the place. Talking like a dude that stepped out of a time machine could be cool in a bar, but not so much if you're giving a presentation on finance.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 hours ago

Is there a ren faire in your area? Maybe you could find one to work at, or like, a magic shoppe. It will be better received if there is a reason for you being in character.