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The word is not "new" by any stretch of the imagination.
It's been in use for 2,000 years. I use obscur in Romanian, but sometimes prefer ascuns or confuz (to hide or confuse).
The word was popular in American literature in the 1950s and 1960s.
I would hope that any moron knowledgeable in English would recognize that obscur and obscurant are both Latin and the root for the English obscure, and adding the suffix "ism" doesn't change the root meaning, so I'm not sure why people would have to look it up.
Are the public school systems that freaking bad?
Yes, they are. When I went to university, I had an appointment with my physics professor, an Iranian woman. She asked me to wait and as I waited I looked at a list of current PHD students. Almost all of them were from Romania. I know a guy from Romania. I showed him my GRE test prep book and all of the vocabulary in it. He was able to define most of it and when I asked him how he knew most of the words, he said that it was typical vocabulary in Romania, so that matches what you said.
We have a reading problem here in the United States, particularly here in the south where intellectualism is seen as uncool.
But I am not surprised. Language is the key to move up in the world or to keep yourself down. An example is the word "snitch" which benefits the person hurting others or themselves. Using snitch allows the bad behavior to continue, the rule to continually be broken. The word is meant to hurt the feelings of the child who wants to tell, to scare them, to dissuade them. But what is really happening is that the children do not have adults they can turn to who have conflict resolution skills and then who can pass those skills on to the children. The adults usually make the whole situation worse especially by writing more rules that cause more problems than helps. If children could go to an adult who knew how to handle the conflict, who could then teach them conflict resolution skills, I suspect snitch would not be a big part of their vocabulary.
I have never heard the word obscurant being used or read it in a text as far as I know. Maybe I did come across it. My memory falters so I don't rely on it for root words, suffixes, prefixes, etc and I don't read stuff from the 50s and 60s to reinforce my memory. I mostly rely on context. Do those books have words like 'obscure' as their main topic? I can't imagine it being used over and over in a work of fiction.
Yes, they are. When I went to university, I had an appointment with my physics professor, an Iranian woman. She asked me to wait and as I waited I looked at a list of current PHD students. Almost all of them were from Romania. I know a guy from Romania. I showed him my GRE test prep book and all of the vocabulary in it. He was able to define most of it and when I asked him how he knew most of the words, he said that it was typical vocabulary in Romania, so that matches what you said.
We have a reading problem here in the United States, particularly here in the south where intellectualism is seen as uncool.
But I am not surprised. Language is the key to move up in the world or to keep yourself down. An example is the word "snitch" which benefits the person hurting others or themselves. Using snitch allows the bad behavior to continue, the rule to continually be broken. The word is meant to hurt the feelings of the child who wants to tell, to scare them, to dissuade them. But what is really happening is that the children do not have adults they can turn to who have conflict resolution skills and then who can pass those skills on to the children. The adults usually make the whole situation worse especially by writing more rules that cause more problems than helps. If children could go to an adult who knew how to handle the conflict, who could then teach them conflict resolution skills, I suspect snitch would not be a big part of their vocabulary.
I have never heard the word obscurant being used or read it in a text as far as I know. Maybe I did come across it. My memory falters so I don't rely on it for root words, suffixes, prefixes, etc and I don't read stuff from the 50s and 60s to reinforce my memory. I mostly rely on context. Do those books have words like 'obscure' as their main topic? I can't imagine it being used over and over in a work of fiction.
No, it's from Bertrand Russell who began his studies in the Victorian era.
No, it's from Bertrand Russell who began his studies in the Victorian era.
Thank you. I think you are the one who introduced him on this forum and I really enjoy reading his quotes. There was one in particular that you and I did not come to the same conclusion about its meaning.
Thank you. I think you are the one who introduced him on this forum and I really enjoy reading his quotes. There was one in particular that you and I did not come to the same conclusion about its meaning.
Which one was that?
Note: I have a large collection of Russell quotations, in public domain, in one of my blog posts:
These are from his little book Understanding History, which contains some of his most stunningly beautiful prose. Russell's biographer, not a complimentary one, by the way, wrote that Russell wrote this book as a "pot boiler," to generate income.
I've had this collection online for a couple of decades. I would guess around a third of them have to do with religion. My favorites include:
36: Men of supreme ability are just as definitely congenitally different from the average as are the feebleminded.
54: No nation can long flourish unless it tolerates exceptional individuals, whose behavior is not exactly like that of their neighbors. Everyone knows that men who achieve great things in art or literature or science are apt, in youth, to be eccentric; ...Our bodily life is confined to a small portion of time and space, but our mental life need not be thus limited....Our private lives are often exasperating, and sometimes almost intolerably painful...
67: Kindliness and intelligence are the chief sources of useful behavior and neither is promoted by causing people to believe, against all reason, in a capricious and vindictive deity who practices a degree of cruelty which, in the mathematic sense, surpasses infinitely that of the worst human beings that have ever existed. Modern liberal Christians may protest that this is not the sort of god in whom they believe, but they should realize that only the teachings of persecuted freethinkers have caused this moral advance in their beliefs.
Last edited by KaraZetterberg153; 06-03-2019 at 07:45 PM..
These are from his little book Understanding History, which contains some of his most stunningly beautiful prose. Russell's biographer, not a complimentary one, by the way, wrote that Russell wrote this book as a "pot boiler," to generate income.
I've had this collection online for a couple of decades. I would guess around a third of them have to do with religion. My favorites include:
36: Men of supreme ability are just as definitely congenitally different from the average as are the feebleminded.
54: No nation can long flourish unless it tolerates exceptional individuals, whose behavior is not exactly like that of their neighbors. Everyone knows that men who achieve great things in art or literature or science are apt, in youth, to be eccentric; ...Our bodily life is confined to a small portion of time and space, but our mental life need not be thus limited....Our private lives are often exasperating, and sometimes almost intolerably painful...
67: Kindliness and intelligence are the chief sources of useful behavior and neither is promoted by causing people to believe, against all reason, in a capricious and vindictive deity who practices a degree of cruelty which, in the mathematic sense, surpasses infinitely that of the worst human beings that have ever existed. Modern liberal Christians may protest that this is not the sort of god in whom they believe, but they should realize that only the teachings of persecuted freethinkers have caused this moral advance in their beliefs.
I think the one I chose was not about religion and I may have found it on my own, but the ones you have provided are quite good, especially 67. I will have to go back through my posts to find it.
I think the one I chose was not about religion and I may have found it on my own, but the ones you have provided are quite good, especially 67. I will have to go back through my posts to find it.
Yeah, do find it if you can. I don't remember anyone disagreeing with my take on a Russell quote--or discussing anything about his writing, for that matter.
Yeah, do find it if you can. I don't remember anyone disagreeing with my take on a Russell quote--or discussing anything about his writing, for that matter.
The 67 refers to the page number in the book.
I am sorry I can't follow up with that post; can't find it. I have written too many posts since then, which is unexpected.
Throwing the word around is intended to appeal to a certain audience and repel another one. If you don't want to explain what it means then you begin using the word hoping to attract that rare individual who does know. If you want to expand your circle, then the aim is for curious people who have no problem researching what it means or who are willing to infer its meaning. But if you want to cast a larger net, being inclusive while also maintaining the 'inner circle', then the delivery would have to change to accommodate the general population which would require words and ideas that many are familiar with as well as examples, anecdotes, and definitions (maybe even pauses with questions like "Are you following me?")
I can only use what I told.
mordant and trans told me not to talk about the science that shows we are surrounded by life and connected to it. They told me that this line of reasoning offers theist something to use and and makes atheism harder to sell.
mordant and trans told me not to talk about the science that shows we are surrounded by life and connected to it. They told me that this line of reasoning offers theist something to use and and makes atheism harder to sell.
what would you call that line of reasoning?
I know I don't read every single post but in the posts I have read, I have not seen where Transponder and Mordant said any of this.
I know I don't read every single post but in the posts I have read, I have not seen where Transponder and Mordant said any of this.
well, thats what they told me.
they said "You are not one of us.", whatever that means.
they also told me that that it may be true but has no practical value to them in their everyday lives and stopping religion does so I should not be addressing that line of reasoning.
what would you call it?
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