121–130 of 211 posts
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The only thing pretentious about 'autodidact' is the use of the word 'pretentious' to characterize a common vocabulary word.
It'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".
I have seen that attitude from the room temp IQ crowd - never thought I would see it here.
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It'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 c…
I 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.
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?
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For example, the P(A | B) notation is something you learn at a University Probability class. A good feeling for elementary probability thoery is something that makes you much better at modeling, understanding and predicting the world, and not just as a programmer. And there's lots of other classes like that in a Uni. curriculum (although the overall percentage of really useful classes is in my estimate only 25-50%).…
"normal people who want to learn such things choose to go to school" That's a load of crap. Normal people who want to learn such things pick up a book and read about it. Only very young people consider "going to school" a viable option. Normal people have jobs, kids, and responsibilities and don't have time to go to school every time they pick up a new interest.
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I 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.
So 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-aut…
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It'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".
It'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.
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I 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.
So 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-aut…
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.
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OK, probably I only know all the weird words you never actually use.
That actually happens a fair amount with non-native speakers, since our uncommon words are sometimes very similar to their common words. For example, an italian recently called me ascetic, and I had to look it up.
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It'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".
It'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.
Their goal is not to be perfect judges in individual cases. A crude first pass works fine for them as long as it leaves a lot of good people. http://www.paulgraham.com/judgement.html
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I 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.
So 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-aut…