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"Lack of Hygiene" Dictionaries and thesauri aren't helping.
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Onelook's reverse dictionary gives its typical lots-of-chaff answer, but I think the number 1 offering looks pretty good.
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Uk English would use the word, "scruffy" for a general lack of hygiene and tidyness
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That works in AmE, too, but it's not exactly what I would call sophisticated.
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Interesting. I've always understood scruffiness to be a matter of appearance only, that sanitation is a separate, though not necessarily unrelated, issue.
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A friend who wishes to stay anonymous suggested "Pestilent or pestilential."
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Uk English would use the word, "scruffy" for a general lack of hygiene and tidyness Sounds sophisticated enough to me. It's even English! Why would one need a sophisticated word for an unsophisticated state of being anyway? Is it rude, inpolite, offensive, arrogant or derogatory to ask this?
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I guess it depends upon context, to some extent, Branny. It could be offensive or arrogant, I spose. But it is certainly impolite and might well be a little bit rude or offensive.
Last edited by Rhubarb Commando; 05/16/13 09:48 PM.
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Why would one need a sophisticated word for an unsophisticated state of being anyway? Dunno. That's what Sorrow asked for.
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I guess it depends upon context, to some extent, Branny. It could be offensive or arrogant, I spose. But it is certainly impolite and might well be a little bit rude or offensive. It could be but isn't. It's just a question. It aims at what we have been talking about for a while now. Political correctness. People are trying to invent posh words for unposh things all over. Things and the state of things do not change by renaming it. It only covers up (for a while) My question was rethorical. No offense was meant.
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it also might be what word would the "sophisticated" use, as opposed to a word that "normal" or "rough" people might use. Polite company and all that...
pip pip.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Och, to define what it is not, of course it serves to look at its positive meaning.
a.The science that deals with the promotion and preservation of health. Also called hygienics.
b.Conditions and practices that serve to promote or preserve health: hygiene in the workplace; personal hygiene.
What then could be more sophisticated than simply unhygienic?
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What I was trying to convey was that "scruffy" is not a sophisticated word (therefore not what sorrow wsa asking for.) It was slang, but has become absorbed into the UK form of the language by constant use (and, it appears, into the US form as well.) It is useful because it is a single word, whereas to make a remark about someone else's appearance sound inoffensive, one would have to use a phrase; e.g., "He does not look very tidy," or "Could you wear something smarter, please?"
For an innately polite and reserved nation like the English, it is very hard to make comments on someones appearance or personal hygiene without being thought 'offensive.'
(And I didn't mean that you were being offensive, Branny - I was just talking about the word, 'scruffy.')
Last edited by Rhubarb Commando; 05/17/13 03:49 PM.
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Thank you, one more misunderstanding out of the world. What in the follow up I refered to is that I've understood now that there is a difference between hygiene and personal hygiene. Hygiene has strictly to do with health and health maintanance. Personal hygiene
seems te be about appearance. New to me.
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Thank you, one more misunderstanding out of the world. What in the follow up I refered to is that I've understood now that there is a difference between hygiene and personal hygiene. Hygiene has strictly to do with health and health maintanance. Personal hygiene
seems to be about appearance. New to me.
Not really, Sheaba. Hygiene has but a subjective relationship with cosmetic beauty. Dig?
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Confusion often occurs when someone comes in asking for a word without giving a possible context. It's not clear if sorrow meant lack of hygiene or lack of hygienic appearance.
The answers were all on looks, appearance.
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..and, once again, it appears to have been a drive-by searching.
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Personal hygiene is to do with washing the bits that stink, really!
Edit: the bit that smells is, of course, yor nose!
Last edited by Rhubarb Commando; 05/18/13 08:23 PM. Reason: afterthought
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Sure, the daily bath or shower takes care of all the bits and pieces  , but still we only can assume this wàs about personal hygiene. Never mind, lets rub it off. :-)
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"...It will not do
I'm sorry for you
You very imperfect ablutioner...."
(Of course that's three words, not one...)
For sophisticated insults, Ernest Bramah's early Kai Lung works are a sparkling fountain. Sometimes it takes three readings before you realize you haven't been complimented after all.
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Ha! We are back to the Tromboniator of Titipu Town Band!
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I think I've lost you, Rhub, and I've seen the reference
once before: Titipu Town Band???
----please, draw me a sheep----
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It's all from The Mikado (or, The Town of Titipu).
Also in the Mikado are references in song to "pestilential" and, now that I think of it, even to "Sorrow" (who posted the original question!).
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Unkempt and dishevelled though they don't necessarily convey the unhygienic state (unsanitary), I rather like un'soap'histicated even though it's a fabricated word. I am still ecstatic to have just stumbled across this site of like-minded word nerds!
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It's all from The Mikado (or, The Town of Titipu).
Also in the Mikado are references in song to "pestilential" and, now that I think of it, even to "Sorrow" (who posted the original question!).
thanks, makes more sense now. sometimes it takes me awhile having been raised in total isolation, under a tower miles north of Bree in Middle Earth decades before men came to meet Elves.
Last edited by LukeJavan8; 05/20/13 10:27 PM.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Unkempt and dishevelled though they don't necessarily convey the unhygienic state (unsanitary), I rather like un'soap'histicated even though it's a fabricated word. I am still ecstatic to have just stumbled across this site of like-minded word nerds! TEEPEE
----please, draw me a sheep----
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I love "unsoaphisticated"!
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