Wordplay

I've been told by quite a number of people something along the following lines:

Pascal, there may be ten people in the English speaking world who would understand or even care how you are using that word.

Of course, the critique is usually accompanied by the explanation that I am more intelligent than most, and so I can't expect other to know what I'm talking about.

I refuse to believe this is true. Dammit.

For one thing, I never liked being talked down to, and I don't think anyone else does either, so I will assume my listeners will be unafraid to ask for explanations should they be necessary. For another thing, I'm not that quick (something "intelligent" often implies). I'm curious about some things and will pursue them. But I'm also a slow reader by choice, and don't have the time to fully ferret out everything, and so often stop short. I retain for a long time what I've read or seen. I explore tangents to the things that catch my attention. So I've a wide knowledge, not necessarily intelligently applied. If some think me intelligent, it's only because I spent time accumulating knowledge and seeking wisdom, not because it came readily to me.

And here is maybe the most pertinent thing for this essay: our American educational system did its utmost to keep me from learning in breadth and depth in the same manner it has likely done that to you. I want to help any who seek it. Hence this post today. I want to try to bring remedy to that. I want to thwart the ignorance peddlers.

We Americans have been saddled by a bureaucratic nightmare in the eduction establishment. If there are a majority of Americans who do not know or care about their own language, their own history, their own economic system, their own political system, and their own religious heritage, it is because the bureaucracy has found a way to undermine the human thirst for knowledge, and the sense of survival that is served by it. Our anti-human wannabe masters want a lot of us to not care about our own survival. This comes from the not-so-much-any-more sub rosa  Sus worshiping green movement's influence. And destroying the understanding that would aid an individual's survival certainly fills that goal.

Our very language is filled with nuance that tells us a great deal. Most importantly, it informs us of the various ways schemers go about abusing the latitude a free society has gifted them with. That language also is full of information that helps us understand human nature without having to go to a behavioral expert (much to the chagrin of those who make money telling us how we should behave).

Look, a few days ago I had reason to shed some light on the word sophisticated. It seems to have fallen on deaf ears. But it's a word chock full of meaning many have not been exposed to.

I'd like to begin a series called Wordplay. Do you think you might find this interesting?

The damn school system probably made you hate studying vocabulary.
What if I could make it more interesting.
Would you read it?
Do you think it could help you better influence your neighbors? Give me a clue.