A. Linder's On Language Column
[2014 forward...all new original VNN articles will be posted in this thread. I will probably add earlier material from time to time, but all new articles/reviews/etc moving forward will be copied in here, as well as available elsewhere on the forum.]
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On Language
Reticent vs Reluctant
By Alex Linder [
index]
November 22, 2013
Remember above all, chilluns, language is a form of music, meant to entertain others, to seduce them, to elucidate things for them. We learn the rules not just in order to obtain the fruits of following them - ease, ease that comes from effective communication of ideas and meaning - but, for we of the advanced arts, in order to break them. For breaking the rules runs by rules too, as per jew Zimmerman's 'to live outside the law you must be honest'
(which I didn't know till I looked up this link is a line he adapted from a movie). Escaping hierarchy and structure and discipline isn't possible, except to unseasoned sophomore at Silly State shlooking socialist sophist Sol's semitic slivovitz. If we break the rules without knowing them, without understanding why it's better to break than to observe them, sensing where they need and cry to be broken, to serve a higher purpose, then we are crude and without art or understanding. The default must be to observe the rules, in language as in society. One cannot observe rules one isn't familiar with, and it is the entire enterprise of public schools, at least since
Dewey, to play down the rules, to pretend they don't exist, to make them secondary to the students' self-esteem. Why are they called students if they study only to feel good about themselves? Dewey was a pre-Frankfurter, an echt WASP pervert, and one of the foremost non-jew destroyers of America, 20th century collection. It is a part of our mission here to repair his damage, which propagates even today through his legions of education-major dolts known incorrectly as
teachers through institutions known incorrectly as
public schools. I will be conducting these column classes from time to time, whenever I have enough fodder from my scourings to make a piece. It is our intention to imbue those deficient with appreciation for the lightness of verbal rebellion, where called for, for rebellion in words as in life is a duty like other duties, and for Germanical precision for the ordinariety that is 98.32% of waking life. Perk your ears, parallel your heels, and
nicht rausfallen, mein sponges.
Let me put these out there as general guides. If you're a prole of the usual sort, your job is to understand and comply with the rules. You can achieve that goal.
If you are a bourgeois who knows the rules, your job is see if you have any wings. See if you have some art. Not to walk down the long country highway, with your wings furled on your back, pointing out potholes, but to run and jump and
try to fly. Verily I say unto ye of little comprehension,
not getting things wrong is not the same as getting things right. Not getting things wrong is good enough for proles, it's a genuine achievement. But not for abler folk. Of course, we all need brushing up, me included. As I run across stuff I've forgotten or never knew, I'll find it in here.
1.
Nouns accreting ys
Lately, seen both
resiliency and
competency used - both are wrong, even though the dictionary says the former is acceptable.
Quote:
resilience [ri-zil-yuhns, -zil-ee-uhns]
noun
1.
the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.
2.
ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy.
Also, resiliency.
Origin:
1620–30; < Latin resili(ēns), present participle of resilīre to spring back, rebound (see resilient) + -ence
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The right use is
resilience, not
resiliency, it doesn't sound right. That
y is like seeing green mold on your bread. Eww, get it off, nasty encrustation.
Quote:
competence [kom-pi-tuhns]
noun
1. the quality of being competent; adequacy; possession of required skill, knowledge, qualification, or capacity: He hired her because of her competence as an accountant.
2. sufficiency; a sufficient quantity.
3. an income sufficient to furnish the necessities and modest comforts of life.
4. Law. (of a witness, a party to a contract, etc.) legal capacity or qualification based on the meeting of certain minimum requirements of age, soundness of mind, citizenship, or the like.
5. Embryology. the sum total of possible developmental responses of any group of blastemic cells under varied external conditions.
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2.
Reluctant vs reticent
Here's a common misuse, from story about possible nigger rapist and the college football culture (in this case FSU) that produces and cossets this type:
"I was very reticent to fail a football player, because I didn't want to be harassed,"
http://deadspin.com/jameis-winston-i...eac-1467707410
This is a flat wrong, but quite common, use of
reticent. The word she means and should use is
reluctant. Dictionaries may get weak on this point, but we cannot allow feebleminded proles and indulgent lexicographers to frogmarch this perfectly useful and necessary word behind the dusty iron bars of desuetude. If one could say what he means with the term
unwilling, then
reluctant may be the right choice. There's a subtle difference between unwilling and reluctant.
Unwilling sets a stronger line;
reluctant implies there is an obstacle to one's doing what another party desires, but that obstacle might be removed, in which case one's reluctance might disappear. By contrast one's
reticence does not disappear, since it is a hard-wired trait, not a passing feeling or fleeting disposition.
Quote:
reluctant [ri-luhk-tuhnt]
adjective
1.
unwilling; disinclined: a reluctant candidate.
2.
struggling in opposition.
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Quote:
ret·i·cent [ret-uh-suhnt] Show IPA
adjective
1.
disposed to be silent or not to speak freely; reserved.
2.
reluctant or restrained.
Origin:
1825–35; < Latin reticent- (stem of reticēns ), present participle of reticēre to be silent, equivalent to re- re- + -tic-, combining form of tacēre to be silent (cf. tacit) + -ent- -ent
Can be confused: 1. reluctant, reticent (see synonym study at reluctant) ; 2. reticent, reluctant.
Synonyms
1. taciturn, quiet, uncommunicative.
Antonyms
1. talkative, voluble.
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These are shitty and indulgent definitions. When I learned it,
reticent meant shy or reserved, a character trait, not a transient (changing like weather) disposition to do something. I can assure doubters that
reluctant used to be a common word, used correctly, at last as late as the 1970s. Back then, men were men, they wore vertically striped pants and had sideburns, and they didn't appear in public with unusual words like 'reticent' on their lips. Today,
reticent is common; it experienced a mini-vogue, the origins of which I don't know, but probably trace to some tv dolt trying to appear intelligent by using a slightly uncommon term.
Reticent came to replace
reluctant in the mouth of a public that doesn't read, that only watches tv. Since both are roughly shaped the same, with
r,
c and
t, the public figured they must mean the same thing. They do not. Whites should distinguish themselves by making necessary distinctions, discernments and discriminations.
...
3.
Multiplying syllables, terms, etc., decreasing effects
Here we have the modern tendency to multiply nouns, a tendency characteristic of middle-class self-importance, as the late