λ Tony's Blog λ

Anti-intellectual Euphemisms

Posted on March 13, 2011

I see this a lot, especially in programming forums.

  • Using the word simple, natural, pragmatic, real world or intuitive to mean “I am able to understand this.”

  • Conversely, using the word complex, unnatural, academic, “your world” or unintuitive to mean “I am not able nor am I willing to invest the effort to come to understand this.”

If someone does this, I will politely request that it stops, since it crushes any potential useful discussion.

–By request from Viktor. You don’t wanna mess with Viktor.