5 ms·
The only thing pretentious about 'autodidact' is the use of the word 'pretentious' to characterize a common vocabulary word.
by erdos2 18y ago
The only thing pretentious about 'autodidact' is the use of the word 'pretentious' to characterize a common vocabulary word.
- gnaritas 18y agoIt's not really that common, most people wouldn't know what it meant so it is a bit pretentious. Most people really would just say "self taught".
- mroman 18y agoIt's IGNORANT to refer to that word as pretentious. I have seen that attitude from the room temp IQ crowd - never thought I would see it here.
- jrockway 18y agoWhat lead you to believe that posters here have high IQs? Certainly not the articles or comments ;)
- randallsquared 18y agoAverage IQs would be sufficient to make his point. In my part of the world, "room temperature" refers to somewhere in the neighborhood of 75.
- stcredzero 18y agoI've also met someone who thought it would be neat to be lumped in with the pseudo-intellectuals, because she thought it was a neat sounding word.
- erdos2 18y agoIt's pretentious to say that it's pretentious; in fact, any use of the word pretentious is extremely pretentious, including this one. The use/mention distinction also breaks down for the word 'pretentious': it's not even possible to mention the word without being fatuously pretentious. This is especially true if the criterion for pretentiousness is whether "most people" would know what it is. 'Autodidact' is another matter.
- gruseom 18y agoIt's not at all pretentious to use a well-defined word whose meaning is precisely appropriate. To anyone who needs convincing of this I recommend a large stack of Christopher Hitchens. What's pretentious is using big words to impress others. Most people who do this actually end up not using such words correctly, since nuances of meaning are hardly their primary concern. Edit: what I really object to is your implied criterion that anything beyond what "most people" would say must be pretentious. Lord help us if we're supposed to go by "most people".
- gnaritas 18y agoI think Richard Feynman would disagree with you, and his plain spoken manner is a symbol of how to be smart without being pretentious. Using uncommon words appropriately doesn't make them any less pretentious unless you really don't know they're uncommon, and Christopher Hitchens, whom I very much like, is hardly someone associated with being unpretentious. Hitchens certainly doesn't suffer fools well.
- gruseom 18y agoSo anything beyond what's common is pretentious? As I read the definition of the word, that's just wrong. On the other hand, looking things up in a dictionary to find out what they mean is so far from common that, by your definition, I'm being pretentious just for doing so. Edit: your invocation of the name of Feynman strikes me as gratuitous (oops, I'm being pretentious there) and a textbook example of appeal-to-authority (or rather, it would be one, if you actually were quoting him or had the right to speak for him). Edit 2: what on earth does "suffering fools well" have to do with being pretentious or not?
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- gnaritas 18y agoWell, it's not really worth arguing about, but my appeal to authority was in response to an appeal to authority (Hitchens). If you don't agree the word is pretentious, fine, but to me and many others I presume (since I didn't start this thread, someone else called it pretentious first) do find that people who use uncommon words are being pretentious and trying to sound impressive with their vocabulary. Given a choice to say something plainly or with fancy words, the unpretentious choice is plain talk. As for the reference to suffering fools, I was merely pointing out why I think Hitchens can be pretentious, but it wasn't really relevant, I agree. Maybe ostentatious is a more accurate word, but it is a synonym of pretentious. In any case, I really don't care that much, so I won't bother arguing further, if you disagree with me, then let's just agree to disagree and move on to something more productive than arguing about words.