Erudition is today’s fun word.
Hey, word lovers! I have changed the title of the series to ‘Word Wednesday Fun’. Words are fun despite my English Language master (yes, we called the teacher ‘master’) doing his utmost to destroy my love of language.
English Literature was fun. I loved Dickens ‘Tale of Two Cities’. I never read Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ from start to finish (too long).
French was a subject I loved at school and studied one of the French literary greats. I read La Plague by Albert Camus in its entirety – in French. Probably because I thought it would stand me in good stead to chat up a pretty French girl! Non!
Albert Camus taught me much –
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
I digress, excusez-moi!
I used “erudition” in a recent post and I’m not sure I used it in its correct form!
Here we go and first up is the totally unedited layout of the definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
erudition
noun er·u·di·tion \ˌer-ə-ˈdi-shən, ˌer-yə-\
Simple Definition of erudition
Popularity: Top 40% of words
: impressive knowledge that is learned by studying
Full Definition of erudition
: extensive knowledge acquired chiefly from books : profound, recondite, or bookish learning
See erudition defined for English-language learners
Examples of erudition
a scholar of remarkable erudition
<a theologian of impressive erudition but with a down-to-earth manner>
Related to erudition
Synonyms
education, knowledge, learnedness, learning, literacy, scholarship
Antonyms
ignorance, illiteracy, illiterateness
Related Words
culture, edification, enlightenment; reading; bookishness, pedantry
Near Antonyms
functional illiteracy
Synonym Discussion of erudition
knowledge, learning, erudition, scholarship mean what is or can be known by an individual or by humankind. knowledge applies to facts or ideas acquired by study, investigation, observation, or experience <rich in the knowledge of human nature>. learning applies to knowledge acquired especially through formal, often advanced, schooling <a book that demonstrates vast learning>. erudition strongly implies the acquiring of profound, recondite, or bookish learning <an erudition unusual even in a scholar>. scholarship implies the possession of learning characteristic of the advanced scholar in a specialized field of study or investigation <a work of first-rate literary scholarship>.
Next, and in line with last week’s inaugural Word Wednesday, follows the Urban Dictionary definition, again in an unedited WYSIWYG version. In fact, I was not surprised to see that erudition wasn’t listed (double negative, but I’m beyond caring) but I guess erudite will do!
And, don’t you just love it! It made me roar! Particularly the example given about the hooker – drole extremis!
Full Definition of erudite
: having or showing knowledge that is gained by studying : possessing or displaying erudition <an erudite scholar>
er·u·dite·ly adverb
erudite
knowing a lot of shit in one subject. well-learned
The hooker was erudite in subjects such as sex and drugs.
That still makes me laugh 🙂
C’mon over to you. Do you have a word that you have discovered and wish to share with the proletariat?
Entrez monsieurs et madames, la parole est à vous.
We used to say that a lot in Liverpool!
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Great post! I would like to be more erudite in the areas of vocabulary and languages.
All through middle school and high school and on into college I studied French because I thought it was a beautiful language. Little did I know that Spanish would have been a more useful language. I now can ‘butcher’ the Spanish language with the best of them as I have had a lot more experience using and learning Spanish than I ever had speaking French. Although I do credit learning French to the ease at which I was able to pick up Spanish.
Also knowing other languages (at least Romance languages) gives you a better base of root words that can help you decipher words in the English language as well.
Thank you, Sandy. I agree with your comment about knowing other Romance/Latin based languages as an aid to deciphering some words in English. I studied French too. It has not only helped me to decipher certain words in my native English but also enables me to decipher many words in Spanish and Italian. Once, it also helped me to deliver a 10-minute speech in Italian. I wrote the speech, self-translated it into Italian and sought the help of an Italian waiter at the hotel /conference venue for dialect coaching before I delivered the speech!
The effort was worthwhile to see a bunch of Italian beaming faces and hear calls of “bravissimo” 🙂
Talent Steve!! That is cool! :- )
For years I managed a show horse stable and we had a horse owner from Italy and he just automatically started asking me questions about his horse in Italian and I actually managed to understand the whole conversation and was able to answer him. At the end of it, it dawned on him that I don’t actually speak Italian, and we had a good laugh about it. But I credit that ability to knowing French as well 🙂