Ruin Explorer said:
Well exactly, and I'm quite sure Mistwell does think they're being elitist, as he's so strange that he thinks lawyers using technical terminology amongst themselves are being elitist.
I don't think that, I know that (about lawyers). I've been one for almost 14 years now, and it's a known topic in the field. I even took a seminar in that topic. It was initially a very intentional thing, to make people think they needed a lawyer to accomplish even the most simple legal tasks like drafting a buy/sell contract. Would you really like the historical examples where it's bloody obvious they were being elitists?
As someone with an unusually broad vocabulary myself, I've always found it extremely irritating that there are some people in the world, inevitably the ones who do know what the words you're using mean, who demand that you not use them because it's possible that someone might not. Even though, nine times out of ten, the potentially-confused person knows what you mean via context or because they've got a larger vocabulary than the self-proclaimed anti-elistist judged them to have.
In this case, we don't have to debate it, because we know for sure the use of the word has caused a great deal of confusion, and continues to do so. And you just had a new person come here unsolicited and say it spooked them (in so many words). So for all your theoretical irritation over that general issue, with this specific issue it's applicable. You are not communicating well when you use that word in this forum. You are excluding people when you use that word in this forum. Now your position might be "Tough S". And that's fine (though you have to deal with the ramifications). But let's not pretend it communicates the concept well, or doesn't exclude people.
Frankly, it's rude and condescending behaviour on the part of the "anti-elistists". If you're never exposed to unusual vocabulary, your vocabulary will never grow, and you will never learn the words which have more precise meanings which are appropriate to their particular use, nor can you judge what words someone knows the meaning of particularly easily or reliably. Many people know the meaning of words they can't spell, others ones they can't pronounce, but recognize when others say them.
After the third or forth thread involving many people being confused about this word, I find it laughable that you think people are being rude and condescending when they tell you that you are failing to communicate well when you use that word. If you are trying to communicate the meaning of that word, you're failing at it. I suggested a method to better communicate, and you are free to accept or reject that advice. But don't whine that I am being rude or condescending to you by pointing out what is bloody obvious to most people - that the use of the word verisimilitude isn't working, and it's just making things worse.
Versimilitude IS the right word,
It's "A" right word, not "THE" right word. There are other words that are just as correct, but which communicate better. That's my point.
and it's really, truly absurd to suggest that it's "elitist" to use it amongst generally well-educated people with access to the internet.
It's elitist to use it amongst generally well-educated people with access to the internet after you know it causes confusion and fails to communicate what you are trying to communicate to those people, over and over again.
At worst, one can find out exactly what it means in under five seconds via Google
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/verisimilitude and even that "bad" situation means you vocabulary has increased.
And yet, it's failed repeatedly to work as a word here. And you just heard from a newbie his reaction to seeing that word. But you still think your principals are more important than communication and community? And I am the one being rude?
In the end, obsessive hounding of "elitism" is just another form of aggressive exclusionary behaviour, and this is something we see often in Britain with the class problems British society still suffers from. I'd be interested to hear what Mistwell though of people who speak dialects (much more common in the UK than US, of course). Are the "obscure" words they use attempts to keep people out or merely the appropriate words to them?
We have that problem in the U.S. as well, and there is no question some people who speak with an affected dialect who use obscure words are doing it intentionally as elitist snobs trying to exclude the riff-raff. It happens in the north east region the most (New England), and usually by old-wealth people in locations like the Hamptons in New York. Its become a running joke, as represented by characters like Thurston Howell III on the TV Show Gilligan's Island.
But really, I care a lot less about intent than results. I don't much care if you use the word because you are actually an elitist or because you just like the word and think it fits. I care that many people don't know what you mean, that it keeps coming up that people don't know what you mean, and that new people see that word being thrown around and they think "this place isn't for me".
