Chris Heard on Pretentious Words
Kudos to Chris Heard for taking after pretentious-sounding words. He objects to scholars' use of the words "pericope" and "praxis":
"Why do biblical scholars use, and teach their students to use, the word 'pericope' when the simple English word 'passage' means the same thing and will do just fine? I can discern no valuable semantic reason for using 'pericope' instead of 'passage.' Ditto for using 'praxis' instead of 'practice.'"In comments on Chris' blog, I responded as follows:
"The problem isn't confined to academia. Take the word 'utilize': 'use' can be substituted 99.99% of the time for this pretentious-sounding word. But some people say (or write) 'utilize' all the time, instead of the rare .01% cases where it's necessary.For instance, "utilize" works better than "use" when one is trying to convey profitable or practical use for something. The term "praxis" (which I admittedly loathe) is supposed to carry an emphasis of theory in conjunction with practice. As for "pericope", I've no idea how this improves on "passage", but it probably does in a way that warrants its usage once in a blue moon.
"I suspect that 'pericope' and 'praxis' are analogous to 'utilize'. They work better (or with more precision) than 'passage' and 'practice' only .01% of the time, but people use them 85% of the time anyway, because it makes them sound smart and scholarly."
Pretentious-sounding words have reasons for existing, but perhaps they wouldn't sound so pretentious if they were used as judiciously and rarely as warranted.
UPDATE: Thanks to commenters below for distinctions between "pericope" and "passage". On Chris' blog, Jack Poirier comments further as follows: "I use 'pericope' when I mean... a unit delimited by a narrative change of some sort, and I use 'passage' when I mean... just the words in question, and, as far as I can tell, that's what everyone else does. I don't even think the two terms (at least as commonly used) are close to being synonyms." So I guess "pericope" is a bit more useful than either "utilize" or "praxis".
posted by Loren Rosson III @ 12/19/2006
6 Comments:
I can't speak for Heard, but when I've seen "pericope" used, it's been applied to a section that can be treated as more or less self-contained. A pericope may be a parable, or Mark's "little apocalypse," but not just a single sentence. The word "passage" is certainly more general than that, and can refer to anything from several paragraphs to a single verse.
What is pretentious to one person is commonplace to another... I see nothing wrong with pericope and actually prefer it to passage. I agree with J.J. Ramsey that passage is much more general while pericope is generally a self-contained unit of some kind, e.g. as used in lectionary readings.
I agree with J.J. Ramsey and Ken: as I use the terms, "pericope" and "passage" are not at all synonymous.
This really got to me at one of the first PTA meetings I attended, back in the mid-90s. Heard all these presentations from staff using the term "rubric." I finally asked what they meant, and was told that it basically means an "outline." OK, I said, why don't you use that word, which everyone understands? No meaningful response. Subcultures zealously seek out a proprietary language, I believe. When I was a young Air Force pilot we tossed around all kinds of funky terminology in the presence of the non-rated, to set us apart, you see. Hope I've grown up a bit since those days.
Really people... these threads only prove my point... what is pretentious to one person is not to another? I mean Ralph I know more than a few people who would consider "proprietary language" pretentious for "jargon" or even more simply "slang", "code words", or "their own language". The deeper concern, I think, is incorrect or ignorant usage... when somebody tries to be high-sounding by using more "difficult" words but then actually applies them incorrectly of their real meaning or nuance... otherwise people with sophisticated vocabularies should be admired and we should aspire to their level rather than protest that they come down to ours!
Funny, because imho, there is no word sillier and more elitist-sounding than pretentious. Sure, as has been said, it has its place and sure, some things and people could rightly be described as such. But what I can't stand is when people slap the word on anything that's even remotely unfamiliar to them, or just not what they'd personally prefer. It's so hypocritical, it's laughable.
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