I like learning new vocabulary words. Always have, always will. I acquired a new one the other day: "Brobdingnagian[1]." I heard it on a cartoon, of all places, and had to look it up.
I like the precision of a wide vocabulary, of finding the word that is the best fit for the abstract ideas rolling around your head.
Problems arise, however, when people don't understand the words I'm using. Almost defeats the purpose of trying to be a better communicator, you know?
The funny part? When I use an unknown word or refer to an unusual concept…and the person I'm talking to nods and goes along with it even though it's obvious they haven't a clue what I'm talking about.
Why not just ask? From my perspective, there really is no shame at all in being ignorant of something. Every single solitary person in the world is ignorant of tons of things – facts they've never been exposed to or things they knew once upon a time that have been forgotten through disuse.
Refusal to correct ignorance when given the opportunity, however, is my definition of stupid. Simply saying, "I'm sorry, that's new to me. What does it mean?" shows a willingness to learn that I respect. Pretending to know something you don't so you won't have to admit that you, like everyone else in the world, doesn't know everything? …stupid.
It's the intellectucal equivalent of tripping awkwardly in a public place - if you laugh at yourself and say, "Whoa, should've watched where I was going," then no one cares. If you try to pretend like nothing happened and that you're still the coolest thing on two legs, everyone else laughs.
For my part, immature as it sounds, I usually only have one reaction to the bewildered nodding of the willfully ignorant.
I try to stump them again.
Picture is (c) 2012 A. M. Perkins. All rights reserved.
[1] "Brobdingnagian," for those who, like me, were unaware of this word, means of enormous size; tremendously huge. It comes from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, named for the country Gulliver visits where everyone is a giant compared to him. This country is the antithesis of Lilliput, from which we derive, of course, the much more common "Lilliputian."
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