Free Will

[RCSaunders]

... I find linguistic prudery annoying.

That says more than you intended.

I think you are confusing prudery for priggery.

Prudery comes from prudent:

1. Careful or wise in handling practical matters; exercising good judgment or common sense: a prudent manager of money.
2. Characterized by or resulting from care or wisdom in practical matters or in planning for the future: a prudent investment.

prig :

1. A person who demonstrates an exaggerated conformity or propriety, especially in an irritatingly arrogant or smug manner.

One who is careful to use the least ambiguous language they can, without intentional obfuscation, offense, or crudity is a prude.

One who insists others only use academically accepted or approved jargon is a prig.

[Skepdick]

One who is careful to use the least ambiguous language they can, without intentional obfuscation, offense, or crudity is a prude.

One who insists others only use academically accepted or approved jargon is a prig.

Ef yo R fixing me words yo ken undarstand my meening gud enuff.

Language has fuckton of redundancy built-in! Any ambiguity/lack of clarity can be resolved in real time if the interlocutors are engagingin in good faith.
Such degree of caution is absolutely unnecessary for practical matters like conversations, even if it's necessary for practical matters such as publications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_det ... correction

[Belinda]

...many jargons are based on Greek and Latin not on Anglo Saxon and there are well known historical reasons for this. Anglo Saxon also has the advantage of being better for explicit terms of abuse the usage of which can be a handy skill.

Orwell was aware of this. And actually, a lot of bloated words are borrowings from French or from some other European language, like German. English is a great acquirer of the words of others.

It is true there are people who try to mystify , gull, and cheat others by pretending they know more than they do. It is not true that appropriate usage of jargons is a sign of mystification, gulling, or cheating.

The key word is "appropriate." There is an appropriate use of a big or technical term, and an inappropriate one. Orwell didn't say "Never use a technical term or concept word": he said, "Never use a long word when a shorter, clearer one is available." Sometimes, such a word is not available without warping the intended concept. And then, it's appropriate.

But in academia, the preference is all for the big over the small, the verbose over the plain, the obscure over the clear, and the ostentatious over the humble. That's a terrible writing habit. If the ideas behind the writing are good, then it ought to be those ideas that ring through with truth and clarity; it should not take polysyllabic obscurantism to render that idea believable, if it's any good in the first place.

If you use jargon to mystify others then you are dishonest...

Well, one might also just be too easily impressed, or one might be trying desperately to appear smart. Lord knows there's enough of that going on in academia. But Orwell also points out that the dishonesty involved extends even to the writer himself/herself: that is, that by being wordy, the writer may fool himself/herself into thinking an idea that is actually stupid or barbaric is reasonable, and thus end up advocating something he/she would never, in his/her right mind, advocate. So it often hurts not just the reader but the writer as well.

Your opinion of academia seems to be coloured by inverted snobbery.

[RCSaunders]

Your opinion of academia seems to be coloured by inverted snobbery.

Academia is the intellectual swamp in which all bad ideas are spawned, and all truth rots.

After government, no institution is more dangerous or evil than academia.

It is not possible to have too low an opinion of academia.

[Immanuel Can]

Your opinion of academia seems to be coloured by inverted snobbery.

It's "coloured" by first-hand knowledge, actually. Go and read what they write. You'll see it for yourself -- abundantly.

Go to their conferences. You'll see it again. Check their textbooks. Again, same thing.

[Sculptor]

Your opinion of academia seems to be coloured by inverted snobbery.

Academia is the intellectual swamp in which all bad ideas are spawned, and all truth rots.

After government, no institution is more dangerous or evil than academia.

It is not possible to have too low an opinion of academia.

This just shows how poor your education is.

[Belinda]

... I find linguistic prudery annoying.

That says more than you intended.

I think you are confusing prudery for priggery.

Prudery comes from prudent:

1. Careful or wise in handling practical matters; exercising good judgment or common sense: a prudent manager of money.
2. Characterized by or resulting from care or wisdom in practical matters or in planning for the future: a prudent investment.

prig :

1. A person who demonstrates an exaggerated conformity or propriety, especially in an irritatingly arrogant or smug manner.

One who is careful to use the least ambiguous language they can, without intentional obfuscation, offense, or crudity is a prude.

One who insists others only use academically accepted or approved jargon is a prig.

That is all new to me. I have said "prudish" and "prudery " with the meaning I have given it for many years. I wonder if this difference of opinion is due to the slight variations between of American English and English English. and no, I would not have used 'priggery' in that context even if there were such a word.

[RCSaunders]

... I find linguistic prudery annoying.

That says more than you intended.

I think you are confusing prudery for priggery.

Prudery comes from prudent:

1. Careful or wise in handling practical matters; exercising good judgment or common sense: a prudent manager of money.
2. Characterized by or resulting from care or wisdom in practical matters or in planning for the future: a prudent investment.

prig :

1. A person who demonstrates an exaggerated conformity or propriety, especially in an irritatingly arrogant or smug manner.

One who is careful to use the least ambiguous language they can, without intentional obfuscation, offense, or crudity is a prude.

One who insists others only use academically accepted or approved jargon is a prig.

That is all new to me. I have said "prudish" and "prudery " with the meaning I have given it for many years. I wonder if this difference of opinion is due to the slight variations between of American English and English English. and no, I would not have used 'priggery' in that context even if there were such a word.

They are both very old words, and very common, especially in English (British) literature. The definitions I gave are both dictionary definitions. The word "prig," was very popular in Cambridge and Oxford in the first half of the twentieth century.

Your "common" misuse of the word, "prude," to insult those who are actually cognizant of values in their communication (as well as matters of common etiquette and personal integrity) became popular when the true meaning of concepts became sloppy, like the common use of the term, "phobia," today. to refer to anything one does not like or disagrees with.

[Immanuel Can]

...the common use of the term, "phobia," today. to refer to anything one does not like or disagrees with.

Yeah, that's a dumb one. They do that all the time. But I think the cause is not sloppiness, but rather an intention to propagandize the discussion, and automatically paint opponents as "fearful" and "irrationally fearful," or even "acting paranoid," rather than as people objecting rationally or on principle.

The convenient thing is that one does not feel obligated to respond to any critique that proceeds from mere "fear" and "paranoia".

"Trans-phobic" is the latest idiocy...as if people were "irrational fearful" of the man in the dress or the woman with trousers, rather than pointing out that they are exhibiting body-dysmorphic behaviours.

[RCSaunders]

...the common use of the term, "phobia," today. to refer to anything one does not like or disagrees with.

Yeah, that's a dumb one. They do that all the time. But I think the cause is not sloppiness, but rather an intention to propagandize the discussion, and automatically paint opponents as "fearful" and "irrationally fearful," or even "acting paranoid," rather than as people objecting rationally or on principle.

The convenient thing is that one does not feel obligated to respond to any critique that proceeds from mere "fear" and "paranoia".

"Trans-phobic" is the latest idiocy...as if people were "irrational fearful" of the man in the dress or the woman with trousers, rather than pointing out that they are exhibiting body-dysmorphic behaviours.

Just ran across this:

It’s fatphobic, it’s racist and it’s hurtful,” said Lizzo, a millionaire who lives in a stunning Los Angeles mansion with an in-home studio, in an Instagram Live video on Sunday, according to a report by NBC News. “What I won’t accept is y’all doing this to Black women over and over and over again, especially us big black girls. When we don’t fit into the box that you want to put us in, you just unleash hatred onto us. It’s not cool.

[Belinda]

Your opinion of academia seems to be coloured by inverted snobbery.

It's "coloured" by first-hand knowledge, actually. Go and read what they write. You'll see it for yourself -- abundantly.

Go to their conferences. You'll see it again. Check their textbooks. Again, same thing.

I have , and do. What education does for you is teach you how to judge what is probably true and what is probably false.

I am also well aware that academics are involved in power politics. Nobody is claiming anyone who works in academia is JC.

[Immanuel Can]

Just ran across this: It’s fatphobic

Oy vey.
So now you're supposed to be "afraid" of what? That they'll eat you? It's certainly not that they will chase you down. Since fat is a health problem, I guess the next thing they'll tell us is that oncology is "cancerphobic."

[Immanuel Can]

I am also well aware that academics are involved in power politics. Nobody is claiming anyone who works in academia is JC.

Decidedly not.

There's an old joke about academia. It says that the fights there are so vicious because the stakes are so low. That's about right.

Anyway, verbosity, pedantry, grandiloquence, obfuscation and so forth are the stock-in-trade. And if you are yourself involved in academia, you know that's the simple truth...especially in the Humanities, and nowhere worse than in Critical Theory, the various interest-group studies (like Women's Studies and Gay Studies) and in the Faculties of Education. Today, they're all corrupted with bad writing, and with its companion: weak thinking.

[Belinda]

Recent posts from Immanuel Can and RCSaunders are interesting for their illustrating the efforts a particular demographic will make to defend anti-intellectualism.

The attitude of anti-intellectualism comes from fear of those in power such as central government and academia. In the US this attitude has historical origins when people who went west felt their interests were being ignored by the power base in the east of the country, where for historical reasons the power base resided.

[Immanuel Can]

Recent posts from Immanuel Can and RCSaunders are interesting for their illustrating the efforts a particular demographic will make to defend anti-intellectualism.

That's about the funniest comment you can make, B. I'm tempted to disabuse you of that notion... but I won't. I'll merely point out that you have not a clue what I do or do not know about academia, and leave it there.

But no, what I'm arguing against is not "intellectualism" but mere "pseudointellectualism," or "pretentiousness" or "pedantry" that stands in place of any genuine erudition. And academia is just full of wanna-be's who are pretending to understand things they don't, and use verbal tricks to hide their lack of clarity of thought. Read scholarly journals, and you'll be amazed at the turgid, convoluted, jargon-saturated prose these people crank out. Orwell compares them to cuttlefish trying to escape by squirting ink -- a most apt metaphor.

Like I say, just read the literature they produce, and you'll know beyond all possibility of doubt I'm telling you the truth.