Bjays92 said:
Heyyy what's wrong with unbeknownst? It's a fun word. Unbeknownst to some, I will occasionally drop an unbeknownst into my sentences
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It's one of those clunky and cringey fashionable words people use these days to make themselves feel more important and add fake profundity to their otherwise banal statements. Words like utilize, situated and so on. And for some inane reason, ye olde British forms like whilst, amongst and amidst are making a comeback. It was the bane of my existence when I worked in communications LOL
 
Undead said:
It's one of those clunky and cringey fashionable words people use these days to make themselves feel more important and add fake profundity to their otherwise banal statements. Words like utilize, situated and so on. And for some inane reason, ye olde British forms like whilst, amongst and amidst are making a comeback. It was the bane of my existence when I worked in communications LOL
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Ahh yes but I am the one who is taking university english so I must find ways to unnecessarily muddle the content of my writings as to sound as though I maybe be ever so slightly more intelligent than reality deems me to be.

Edit: I will defend situated though. It has a pretty specific and tailored meaning. As for the others, outside of very few formal settings and writing and such, use over utilize, among over amongst and amidst. One of personal favorites to use is save in the context, "they were all successful save one" but again that's pretty much useless outside of literature. However this is entirely off topic and I digress
 
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These words are not 'fashionable' they are legitimate words in the english language. Perhaps some would prefer 'like for sure dude, sweet, that's epic, like totally!

Meanwhile back to this thread. Unbeknownst to me I believe I'm may be amongst some who may like totally like think 11YV will be OMG Knarly.
 
LUVIT! said:
These words are not 'fashionable' they are legitimate words in the english language. Perhaps some would prefer 'like for sure dude, sweet, that's epic, like totally!

Meanwhile back to this thread. Unbeknownst to me I believe I'm may be amongst some who may like totally like think 11YV will be OMG Knarly.
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I stand by what I said. Don't think I said anything about them being illegitimate lol. Fact is they're being used by silly corporate types to sound deep and that qualifies them as trendy/fashionable in my book. Nice strawman though!
 
Undead said:
It's one of those clunky and cringey fashionable words people use these days to make themselves feel more important and add fake profundity to their otherwise banal statements. Words like utilize, situated and so on. And for some inane reason, ye olde British forms like whilst, amongst and amidst are making a comeback. It was the bane of my existence when I worked in communications LOL
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On the subject of unbeknownst:

You made me look up synonyms. I'm not sure any were a better fit here:

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from: https://thesaurus.plus/synonyms/unbeknownst


I think the turn-of-phrase could have been 'without our knowledge'. But I don't know that that sounds substantially more plain spoken.

Obviously you could just drop the 'st' off the end. Shrug.

*****

Whilst is still very current in Brit-Speak English.

Its used quite commonly.
 
Yes, in seriousness, unbeknownst is to me a helpful word in the right context because it is actually shorter and more precise than the alternatives. It replaces the phrase "Unbeknownst to" replaces the phrase "Without being known to".

While I'm sure this could have been frustrating in @Undead's context of corporate communications, it is a useful word in the context where it was posted here, being a legal document.

That is not to say that there is not alot of legal lingo that ought to be relegated to the dustbin of history. Definitely "verily", as jokingly posed by @Lenser, is one of them. It is often used in a context of "I do verily swear XYZ". No one would swear something that is untrue, which would be perjury. No sense in using words that add nothing to the context.

Amongst is a middle ground. I don't find it offensive when used in context, but unlike unbeknownst, there are easy simpler alternatives.
 
”Verily”, as a traditionalist in matters linguistic, any word found in Shakespeare, John Donne, Archbishop Cranmer or the King James Version of the Bible passes muster for me. To my surprise, however, “unbeknownst“ doesn’t qualify for that distinction. According to Google, its first known usage is only from 1637. A parvenu, I tell you! A literary parvenu! (And, no, I don’t know when “parvenu” was stolen from the French.)
 
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