Wanted: Connoisseurs

[coberst]

Wanted: Connoisseurs

Connoisseur—one who understands the details, technique, or principles of an art and is competent to act as a critical judge—one who enjoys with discrimination and appreciation of subtleties.

When speaking of connoisseurs we generally think of gourmets, food, wine, wealth, gout and diabetics. I want to add something new to your connotations—I want to talk about ‘connoisseurs of words’.

To become a person who enjoys the discrimination and appreciation of the subtleties of words and thus of reality one needs to become a reader of books. Don’t run away—this may be more pleasant and less painful than you think.

To become wise of the world, to become a connoisseur of words, it is advisable to be a card carrying member of a large library. Many small city libraries do not fully qualify but most people are close to a small college that has a relatively large library. Most college libraries have a ‘Friends of the Library’ card that is available to any state citizen for a small yearly fee of like $25.

Becoming a card carrying member of the ‘connoisseur of words’ club is easy, delightful, inexpensive, and profoundly interesting; and occasionally, as Carl Sagan said, “understanding is a kind of ecstasy”.

There are other ways to discover the nature of reality beyond the superficial but reading books is one of the easiest and best, in my judgment. One cannot comprehend the depths of reality without comprehending the words that communicate that depth and one cannot comprehend the words without reading books of quality. Pulp fiction does not qualify as being books of quality.

[DreadNiK]

And?

[Wudang]

"To become wise of the world" Did you mean this construction?

[coberst]

"To become wise of the world" Did you mean this construction?

Yes

In the summer of 48 my older brother told me that if I wanted to play high school football I had to ‘get ready’. In his terms, ‘getting ready’ meant running to get in condition for the rigors of football practice.

In the summer of 06 I want to begin the quest for wisdom. How do I ‘get ready’ for becoming wise?

Starting with the definition of wisdom as “seeing life whole” seems to be as good a place to begin as I can think of. How do I get ready to see life whole?

It seems to me that to see life whole I must learn a great deal more than I already have learned but I must start with where I presently am. I am convinced that learning new stuff requires three aspects (a position facing a particular direction) of mind; mentally I must have curiosity, caring, and an orderly mind.


I claim that curiosity and caring are necessary conditions for understanding. Understanding is a far step beyond knowing. I will not examine a matter for the purpose of understanding it unless I am curious about it. I must care enough about the matter to do the intellectual work necessary to understand.

Understanding is a step beyond knowing and is seldom required or measured by schooling. Understanding is generally of disinterested knowledge, i.e. disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic (due to the nature of the self) value. Disinterested knowledge is not a means but an end. It is knowledge I seek because I desire to know it. I mean the term ‘disinterested knowledge’ as similar to ‘pure research’, as compared to ‘applied research’. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application.

Understanding is often difficult and time consuming and the justification is not extrinsic (outside cause) but intrinsic.

[Wudang]

It's the "of" preposition that I find slightly jarring. I read "wise of" and I think of the older use "in the wise of kings...". "He is wise of heart" etc. I'm not sure what your phrase means. "Wise to the world" perhaps. "Wise (in the ways) of the world"? Or is "wise" a noun?

[Wudang]

BTW - my favourite tricky sentence
"The old man the boats"

[UserGoogol]

I'm not sure that connoisseurship of words (philology?) is neccesary for being a connoisseur of "understanding reality." To understand words is to understand how human mind describes reality, not neccesarily to understand reality itself. It's useful, but I think you might be overstating its importance.

But yeah, words are awesome.

[Edit: I totally know how to spell connoisseur.]

[Spiro]

especially if you can spell words like "connoisseur" correctly!

[slingblade]

I know these things are not directed personally at me, but I do really get tired of seeing exhortations to read more, with the intimation that if you do, you may become wise.

I've given away more books than most people have read in their whole lives. And yes, that means I gave them away after reading them, not before. I can't, however, say that I'm very wise. Just well-read.

[Marquis de Carabas]

BTW - my favourite tricky sentence
"The old man the boats"
Mine...

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.

[l0rca]

Subect function noun verb object function noun.

[JamesDillon]

Coberst,

Does the phrase "pseudo-intellectual poseur" display sufficient linguistic connoisseurship for your satisfaction? I've restrained myself from commenting in several of your previous threads, but it's about time someone explained to you that you're neither as intellectually accomplished nor as well-read as you seem to think you are. Despite what your obviously inflated sense of self-importance would have you believe, no one here is in need of your vacuous exhortations to intellectual edification, so kindly do us all a favor and go back to quiet contemplation of your own brilliance.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Subect function noun verb object function noun.
If that was intended to reflect the word order in the "buffalo" sentence, it is wrong.

ETA: If it helps, you can add a "Buffalo" after the third word, and it still works.

[l0rca]

It was for the other sentence, jerko.

[Marquis de Carabas]

It was for the other sentence, jerko.
Maybe you'd like to consider our lovely quote feature, then.

And, I am not a jerko. I am, quite clearly, an as:Dole.

[Piscivore]

I find "BROMOPNEA" has a piquant, heady flavour slightly redolent of aged Stilton.

[fuelair]

Yes


I claim that curiosity and caring are necessary conditions for understanding. Understanding is a far step beyond knowing. I will not examine a matter for the purpose of understanding it unless I am curious about it. I must care enough about the matter to do the intellectual work necessary to understand.

Understanding is a step beyond knowing and is seldom required or measured by schooling. Understanding is often difficult and time consuming and the justification is not extrinsic (outside cause) but intrinsic.

You are free to claim and/or believe anything but, that does not make it so (for anyone - not trying to pick on you here). I suspect that for many things, understanding is actually a)not a requirer of curiousity b)not a requirer of of care and c)not that far from knowing. (Ignorance, awareness, knowledge, understanding)

[coberst]

Slingblade

An article “Writing off Reading” appeared in the Washington Post Sunday August 20. This article was written by a college professor to speak to the problem of students entering college without sufficient vocabulary comprehension. The problem is described as a lack of reading experience in K-12.

“How does one explain the inability of college students to read or write at even a high school level? One explanation, which owes as much to the culture as to the schools, is that kids don't read for pleasure. And because they don't read, they are less able to navigate the language. If words are the coin of their thought, they're working with little more than pocket change.”

“When students with A averages can't write simple English, it shouldn't be surprising that people ask what a high school diploma is really worth. In California this year, hundreds of high school students, many with good grades, faced the prospect of not graduating because they could not pass a state-mandated exit exam. Although a judge overturned the effort, legislators (not always so literate themselves) in other states have also called for exit exams. It's hardly unreasonable to ask that students demonstrate a minimum competency in basic subjects, especially English.”

This is a serious problem in the United States and I assume it may also be a serious problem in all nations.

Quotes from

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR2006081800976_pf.html

[coberst]

You are free to claim and/or believe anything but, that does not make it so (for anyone - not trying to pick on you here). I suspect that for many things, understanding is actually a)not a requirer of curiousity b)not a requirer of of care and c)not that far from knowing. (Ignorance, awareness, knowledge, understanding)


I have for some time been interested in trying to understand what ‘understand’ means. I have reached the conclusion that ‘curiosity then caring’ is the first steps toward understanding. Without curiosity we care for nothing. Once curiosity is in place then caring becomes necessary for understanding.

Often I discover that the person involved in organizing some action is a person who has had a personal experience leading her to this action. Some person who has a family member afflicted by a disease becomes very active in helping support research in that disease, for example.

I suspect our first experience with ‘understanding’ may be our first friendship. I think that this first friendship may be an example of what Carl Sagan meant by “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy”.

I also suspect that the boy who falls in love with automobiles and learns everything he can about repairing the junk car he bought has discovered ‘understanding’.

I suspect many people go their complete life and never have an intellectual experience that culminates in the “ecstasy of understanding”. How can this be true? I think that our educational system is designed primarily for filling heads with knowledge and hasn’t time to waste on ‘understanding’.

Understanding an intellectual matter must come in the adult years if it is to ever come to many of us. I think that it is very important for an adult to find something intellectual that will excite his or her curiosity and concern sufficiently so as to motivate the effort necessary to understand.

Understanding does not come easily but it can be “a kind of ecstasy”.

I think of understanding as being a creation of meaning by the thinker. As one attempts to understand something that person will construct through imagination a model--like a papier-mâché--of the meaning. Like an artist painting her understanding of something. As time goes by the model takes on what the person understands about that which is studied. The model is very subjective and you and I may study something for some time and we both have learned to understand it but if it were possible to project an image of our model they would be unidentifiable perhaps by the other. Knowledge has a universal quality but not understanding.

Understanding is a tipping point, when water becomes ice, it is like a gestalt perception it may never happen no matter how hard we try. The unconscious is a major worker for understanding.

[l0rca]

A disciple of Jesus and the biblemath doesn't need to quote things. You should have faith to know I'm talking to you.

[slingblade]

“How does one explain the inability of college students to read or write at even a high school level? One explanation, which owes as much to the culture as to the schools, is that kids don't read for pleasure. And because they don't read, they are less able to navigate the language. If words are the coin of their thought, they're working with little more than pocket change.”

I'm aware of all that, coberst. I was told not to use my prodigious vocabulary when I taught, because the students wouldn't understand me. :jaw-dropp

I used it anyway, and made them look up the words they didn't know. Why on earth would I want to dumb it down for them any more? Why deprive them of the chance to learn new words?

I simply quibble with your use of the word "wise." I also quibble with the exhortations to read more, in that it's been said over and over, but reading is continuing to fall off with every year.

We know people, kids and adults, need to read more. How do you suggest we get them to do so? Practical application is what's needed here, not just another visit from Captain Obvious.

(Dude, that's what folks are trying to get you to see: you state the obvious in just about every post. Can you move further than that? Can you access wisdom?)

[coberst]

Slingblade


I can understand your frustration and your challenge. Our culture puts forth a strong attraction for young people to seek the bumper sticker solution. I suspect that those business leaders who control public policy want just such behavior.

So what is the answer? Perhaps the answer rests in trying to induce adults to become critical thinkers after their schooling is over. Perhaps adults can be awakened from their slumber and induced to start a self-actualizing self-learning effort.

[coberst]

Slingblade

Says Goethe; “the little that is done seems nothing when we look forward and see how much we have yet to do”.

The challenge to criticism is disinterestedness! Why we can and should choose the path to DI (disinterestedness) is the discussion this OP will attempt to initiate.

Criticism can show DI by keeping aloof from the practical view of things; by the free play of the mind on all subjects upon which it touches. “Its business is,…simply to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas…and to leave alone all questions which will never fail to have due prominence given to them”.

The world is full of partisan and emotional criticism, right and left. It is filled with various sound bites and bumper stickers advocating nostrums that are promoted with bluff, bluster, and bravado. We, who are of the DI critical thinking mind, will remain disinterested to such malarkey and try to take the path less traveled. To take the path of disseminating truth as we can perceive so as to lay a foundation for new ideas with new approaches to old problems.

The DI critique approach must recognize that its approach is long range resulting in significantly large rewards if successful. This approach creates and nourishes fresh new foundations for the structure of new ideas. This approach lays down a foundation of intellectual grounding that provides for a solid structure but, of course, it will be a painful activity because emotional rage seems to be the order of the day and that rage will express its anti-intellectualism by focusing attacks on those who seek to make a different way.

I think that such an approach must somehow foster an appreciation of the purely intellectual sphere that focuses attention on that which is excellent in human capacity.

[Wudang]

As a connoisseur of language I do enjoy a linguistic flourish where it serves to enrich the subject. What I do not enjoy is what Boren called "linear mumbling". A tale full of sound and fury.

[H3LL]

Oops!

Sorry!

I seem to have stumbled into the Pretentious Git thread by accident.

Where's the door or should I say egress?

.

[Wudang]

The anthropomorphically-compatible external-environment interface element collapses its Schrodinger wave behind the interlocutor.

I'll get me coat.

[coberst]

Wudang

??

[Marquis de Carabas]

Wudang

??
Perhaps you should read more.

[orpheus]

For those who agree that words are awesome (to quote UserGoogol), go here: http://www.oulipocompendium.com/

[Piggy]

This article was written by a college professor to speak to the problem of students entering college without sufficient vocabulary comprehension. The problem is described as a lack of reading experience in K-12.

“How does one explain the inability of college students to read or write at even a high school level? One explanation, which owes as much to the culture as to the schools, is that kids don't read for pleasure. And because they don't read, they are less able to navigate the language. If words are the coin of their thought, they're working with little more than pocket change.”
Well, speaking as someone who taught hundreds of them, I have to disagree.

Most of my students did read for pleasure. But they read junk.

But even that wasn't the most serious problem. One can't learn to read critically simply by reading for pleasure. And one can't learn to write effectively merely by reading, anymore than one can learn to hit a baseball by sitting in the stands.

Some people do, of course, learn to read and write critically on their own, just as some people master the guitar on their own. But these people are rare, and need not concern us here.

If you want to learn to read critically -- to recognize the subtle errors, to distinguish the truly meaningful arguments -- you have to take it apart, like a mechanic takes apart an engine. It's not enough to gaze, to go with the flow. You must wrestle with the angel to get a blessing. You must be willing to break a thing, and still seek the beauty in it, the beauty in the bones, not just the surface.

Far too many of my students sailed along in life, glibly assuming that the thoughts which arose in their minds as they read were sufficient to the text, never asking the hard questions, never examining their assumptions. And their high school education didn't help, plagued as it was by effort-based (rather than outcomes based) evaluation, and a tendency to demand only that students find some relevance in a text to their personal lives, rather than attempt to understand the importance of the text to its intended audience in its own place and time.

The text became about them, which is a lie, because it had never been about them.

Far too many of my students were never asked to dissect a sentence, so that when a more rigid convention of construction was demanded of them, they could not even comprehend it. If you can't tell an adjective from an adverb, or a phrase from a clause, then standards of agreement and comma placement are incomprehensible, and by the time you've gotten your head around those fundamental ideas, it's halfway through the semester and you're hopelessly behind.

But more importantly, if you don't understand the anatomy of a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, an essay, a book, then you do not have sufficient knowledge to mold your words to your purpose.

Love is work. And true love of language is no different. It isn't picked up casually. It is not for the simple tourist.

In all of my classes -- not just creative writing, not just literature, but composition as well -- I began each period by reading a poem. There were no exams on these poems. I just wanted them to hear language at its most compelling, its most beautiful, its most seductive, its most jarring.

A few poems were read to every class. "The Windhover", for instance, and "Musee des Beaux Arts", and "The Naming of Parts". And it always left me a little sad that so many of my students would have to hear Hopkins, because they would never love language enough to invest the work necessary to obtain the skill to read his work on their own and have his glorious scoring, his intricate mirrors of meaning, flash straight from the page to sing in their minds, in their own private and intimate voices.

[Piggy]

Perhaps the answer rests in trying to induce adults to become critical thinkers after their schooling is over.
Then again, perhaps the answer rests in dropping this mad obsession with testing and paperwork, and letting teachers teach in the grade schools, and demanding results of their students, and insisting on discipline, and also taking time out for sheer fun. Perhaps the answer rests in communicating to the kids, at every moment, that they are here because there is something they must learn about what it is they must become. They are here because respect and success are not automatic. And most importantly, they are here because we, the grown ups, all of us, give a damn about whether they make it.

[Piggy]

We, who are of the DI critical thinking mind, will remain disinterested to such malarkey and try to take the path less traveled.
Why do you reference Frost here? What do you take to be the relevance? How to you read his poem?

In my experience, this is one of the best known and least known poems in American literature. Ask just about anyone what it describes, and they will miss the mark. Not on any subtle level, but even on the barest surface meaning of the words.

It has become a cliche, like another of his phrases, "Good fences make good neighbors", which has come to mean what it never meant.

[Garrette]

Why do you reference Frost here? What do you take to be the relevance? How to you read his poem?

In my experience, this is one of the best known and least known poems in American literature. Ask just about anyone what it describes, and they will miss the mark. Not on any subtle level, but even on the barest surface meaning of the words.

It has become a cliche, like another of his phrases, "Good fences make good neighbors", which has come to mean what it never meant.Thank you for that. I've been irked by misrepresentations of both, myself.

[Charlie Monoxide]

I know these things are not directed personally at me, but I do really get tired of seeing exhortations to read more, with the intimation that if you do, you may become wise.

I've given away more books than most people have read in their whole lives. And yes, that means I gave them away after reading them, not before. I can't, however, say that I'm very wise. Just well-read.Well said slingblase. My sentiments as well. I read quite a bit. I can't say I'm more or less wiser than the average Joe. Friends and acquaintenances seem to think I'm smart, but the trick is to question things and use common sense. Not unlike the adages of skepticism.

Doesn't it also depend on what you read? The more I read, the more crap I injest as well ....

Charlie (blue-eyed, quart short) Monoxide

[Piscivore]

Perhaps the answer rests in communicating to the kids, at every moment, that they are here because there is something they must learn about what it is they must become. They are here because respect and success are not automatic. And most importantly, they are here because we, the grown ups, all of us, give a damn about whether they make it.


That's the core of my parenting philosophy right there.

[Marquis de Carabas]

That's the core of my parenting philosophy right there.
I thought the core was "keep them ignorant of MdC's existence as long as possible"?

[Piscivore]

I thought the core was "keep them ignorant of MdC's existence as long as possible"?

That's the Prime Directive, certainly.

[Thanz]

In my experience, this is one of the best known and least known poems in American literature. Ask just about anyone what it describes, and they will miss the mark. Not on any subtle level, but even on the barest surface meaning of the words.

It has become a cliche, like another of his phrases, "Good fences make good neighbors", which has come to mean what it never meant.
Perhaps you would like to enlighten the ignorant masses of the true meaning of both the poem and the phrase?

[Marquis de Carabas]

Perhaps you would like to enlighten the ignorant masses of the true meaning of both the poem and the phrase?
Well, the phrase means that it's always handy to have a trader in stolen goods next door.

[Thanz]

Well, the phrase means that it's always handy to have a trader in stolen goods next door.
Well, that's the popular meaning but Piggy seems to be saying that it means something other than that.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Well, that's the popular meaning but Piggy seems to be saying that it means something other than that.
Ummm... that's not the popular meaning. That's the MdC makes a bad pun meaning.

[Thanz]

Ummm... that's not the popular meaning. That's the MdC makes a bad pun meaning.
Uh, yeah, I got that. I was going with it, to continue the bad pun. I didn't think I needed a smiley for the dark lord of the pith.

I've added some italics. Does that help?

[Marquis de Carabas]

Uh, yeah, I got that. I was going with it, to continue the bad pun. I didn't think I needed a smiley for the dark lord of the pith.
Heh. Well, things sometimes slip by the sleepy dark lord of the pith.

[bluess]

"Good fences make good neighbors"

Frost and his neighbor are walking the stone fence between their properties, and each on their side replacing fallen stones. Frost questions why they need the fence, as they neither have animals. Rather, they have orchards and crop land. What good does the fence do? And the neighbor, intent on repairing the fence, without considering any of these points just says "Good fences make good neighbors."

Frost is not stating this is correct, he is questioning standing wisdom and requesting that the reader do the same.

FWIW, since I haven't read the poem in since high school.

[Piggy]

bluess' take on "good fences" is correct. The neighbor in Frost's poem certainly means the phrase in the sense in which it is commonly meant, but it often gets attributed to Frost as though this were the moral of his poem "Mending Wall", which it certainly is not.

But my post centered more on "The Road Not Taken", which is almost universally cited as a tribute to Emersonian individuality. It is nothing of the sort.

Here is the text:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Consider what's actually being described here.

Here's a prose rendition: I came to a fork in a forest road and, not being able to walk both at the same time, looked a long time down one path til it bent away out of sight. Then I went down the other. It was just as pretty, and perhaps more inviting because it was grassier, less traveled. Although, come to think about it, they really were worn about the same -- in fact, each was covered in a carpet of fallen leaves with no tracks on them. Anyway, I figured I'd come back and walk the other one later sometime. Then again, thinking how one thing leads to another, I doubted I'd ever really go back there after all. Still, some day way in the future, I reckon I'll be telling this story with nostalgia, how I came to a fork in the road, and took the one less traveled on, and that has made so much difference!

It's not about rugged individualism, but about fantasy and justification and the tricks of memory.

Here's a guy remembering a choice, and even as he's telling it he's having to change it around. He depicts the path he took as more fair, more unique than the other path, but immediately recalls, wait a minute, I don't guess that's really true -- it wasn't overgrown and grassy and the other not... they were both untraveled and covered with leaves. And he says that as he took the road he told himself he'd go back to take the other but then realized he was probably fooling himself on that point. But, he says, when he's an old man recollecting his life, he'll probably tell it the way he wants it, the way he's already starting to remember it, as though the road he took were in fact less traveled, more romantic. And he'll assert how this choice has made so much difference to him, even though he has no idea where the other road led.

The famous line of Frost's, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference" is a mere fantasy.

I often used this poem early in the semester to wake my students up. I'd ask them what they thought it "meant", and always got the standard answer. Then we read it again, this time with our brains, not just our eyes.

The students were always surprised that they had misread the action of the poem so completely. From there we'd talk about the pitfalls of lazy reading. And I'd explain that I didn't expect it from them after that moment.

Then I'd share this gem from Stephen Crane, one of his brilliant and wicked little pieces:

The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other roads."

[bluess]

Thanks for the Stephen Crane poem, Piggy. Wicked, indeed.

[Piggy]

Thanks for the Stephen Crane poem, Piggy. Wicked, indeed.
My pleasure. His poetry does not get the reading it deserves.

Here are others (http://www.linguatech.com/scrane/index.htm) - enjoy.