I’m a little suprised that the younger people weren’t more likely to know it – I feel like I come across it a lot in print, for example in tech product reviews – I know I’ve seen things like “the enhanced features of the Acme cell phone are easy to use, even for the confirmed Luddite.” And I don’t read tech journals either, I’m talking about reviews in mass market mags like Time.
As to the social/professional aspects of the situation, it doesn’t need to be too uncomfortable for anyone provided you didn’t gape and yell “What kind of an idiot are you?” at your boss. (Which I’m sure you did not do.) I think it’s a positive thing that someone asked you – it’s better to ask than to sit there and wallow in ignorance. And now they know.
Well, I’m not a college graduate and I don’t hang out with a lot of erudite people, but I do know what “luddite” means, and where it came from. I also wouldn’t have been shocked if someone had used the word “niggard” in my presence, although I was more than shocked at the furor the use of it engendered.
I can match krisolov’s “cull” story: About 15 years ago I was chastized by coworkers for using “big words” after saying “moot.”
I’m sure others have experienced that phenomenon where you learn a new word and then see it everwhere. I looks like several members of the SDMB are in for a Luddite week.
Spoz says I use “big, fluffy words” on him (and others) all the time. Case in point: defenestrate. He knows what it means, but doesn’t like it when I use the word.
My sister wanted to know this over the holidays: Why do people who have big vocabularies insist on showing them off, and never using the simpler term? Like “oleaginous” instead of “oily”… which I admit using on her. I told her it was to expand everyone else’s vocab.
Oh, and yes… I’m familiar with the word “Luddite”… I read a lot, and am subscribed to one of those Word-of-the-Day email subscriptions.
Eureku, my linguistics prof told us in the 1960’s that the f in SNAFU stoof for “fouled.” I believed him!
I love words and the chance to learn new ones. My father made a dictionary stand that has a prominent place in our living room. My husband reads aloud to me and we stop from time to time to look things up.
One word that I was unfamiliar with until recently is gobsmacked. Is that used in Great Britain or Austrailia more than in the States? I would love a really good definition; I don’t know that I’ve seen it in print other than on a forum.
‘Gobsmacked’ is certainly common in the UK…synonymous (tautologous?) with ‘speechless’. I’d hardly even regard it as colloquial, just maybe slightly informal.
I run into this attitude once in a while. (My response depends on whether the questioner is puzzled or obnoxious.) Frankly, the real answer is usually that I have no way of knowing what words “you” don’t know! “Simpler” words? Looking through this thread, we find Luddite, surfeit, rivulet, cull, and moot. Even fungible and soporific hardly count as “big” words. And each of those words is shorter and simpler than using a whole phrase to explain the concept in the middle of a sentence.
If I engaged in some word-play in which I noted (allowing for my Great Lakes American English accent) that some eminent person’s imminent arrival would make his authority immanent, I would expect to be pilloried (possibly by those who did understand the statement). Carrying around a list of all the words that everyone around me does not know seems a bit impractical.
I’m reminded of the story (reprinted by Scott Adams in one of his books) of the woman who got fired for using the word “pedagogical” in a report when one of the executives spectacularly misunderstood it.
Please tell me you own an actual dictionary. The great majority of online dictionaries are fundamentally useless, and frankly there’s no excuse for not owning a printed dictionary if only so you can look things up when your ISP goes down.
Luddite n. & adj. 1. hist. a member of any of the bands of English artisans who rioted against mechanization and destroyed machinery (1811-16). 2. a person opposed to increased industrialization or new technology. adj. of the Luddites or their beliefs. [perhaps named after Ned Lud, who destroyed machinery c.1779]
I first encountered “luddite” in its historical context in 10th grade European history. I remember already being familiar with it when the term was introduced in class.
I feel exactly the same way – that’s what’s great about English, that you can always find a word that means precisely what you want to say. What frequently shocks me is that people sometimes get well and pissed off that you’ve used a word they don’t know. When it happens that I use a word that my company doesn’t seem to understand and I haven’t provided sufficient context, I make an effort to explain myself so that they do understand what I’m saying. If they ask, I’ll tell them, and try not to make a big deal out of it. That people get all wound up about it says a lot about them, I think. I mean, jeez – if I don’t understand a word someone I’m talking to uses, I ask, and then I know. Big honking deal.
You’re way off about baseball, though. Just so you know. NOT soporific. Enthralling, exciting, absorbing, stimulating, perhaps, but NOT soporific.
Sturgeon’s Law posits that 90% of everything is crud. That said, there are many good on-line references. The on-line Merriam-Webster has nearly the identical contents as their Collegiate. Dictionary.com provides entries from multiple dictionaries, including the American Heritage, (and, whatever position one takes on their usage panel, their explicit definitions are well-researched). Sure, I like all my bound dictioanries, from the OED to the multiple copies of the collegiates, but that hardly invalidates an on-line entry (which has the additional advantage of providing a spoken pronunciation unavailable in the text versions).
I beg to differ. www.m-w.com did a fine job and I didn’t have to get off my lazy arse to go to the bookshelf for the paper dictionary.
I consider myself well-read and I didn’t know what it meant. Some of the previous posts sound rather pompous. I’m sure I can find words that you’re not familiar with that wouldn’t qualify as obscure.
I had two moments like this in the same meeting. I had dropped both “ameliorate” and “exigent” in the same report. I wasn’t going for the dead-stop moment they produced, they were the words that came to mind to best describe what I was talking about.
Color me suitably contrite, then. Still, the few times I’ve used MW online and dictionary.com I’ve had no luck (but I was probably looking for words only found in the OED at the time).
I usually keep the Oxford Concise English dictionary immediately at hand because it also contains useful notes about usage, particularly where common practice is varied or technically incorrect (as in the different to/from/than issue, or in the use of comprise), but have others floating about home and work.
