I am not planning to start a "word of the day" article series, but I stumbled onto a word I did not know. If I do not find a way to use it, I will forget it and this one is too good to let go. There are a few complicated words that are used when you want to call someone a moron without them catching on. This is one of them.
Ultracrepidarian
If there is a word out there more apt for describing modern world where hiding behind your keyboard is the easiest thing in the world, it is this one. We were talking about the critique I made of one of the Youtube videos during the livestream yesterday, so it has been on my mind: https://darklordofoptics.locals.com/post/3528032/can-you-make-a-good-1-10x-scope
According to dictionary.com, here are the origin and the meaning.
Origin:
First recorded in 1800–20; from Latin ultrā crepidam (also suprā crepidam ) “above the sole, beyond the sole,” from adverb and preposition ultrā (see origin at ultra-) + Latin crepidam (accusative singular of crepida ) “sole of a shoe, shoe, sandal” (re-formed from Greek krēpîd-, stem of krēpís “man's high boot, half boot, shoe”) + -arian; in allusion to Pliny the Elder's adaptation of the retort that the Greek painter Apelles (360?–315? b.c.) made to a cobbler who was critiquing Apelles' work, nē suprā crepidam sūtor jūdicāre “let the cobbler not judge above the sandal”; cf. the English proverb “let the cobbler stick to his last”
Meaning:
noting or pertaining to a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside their area of expertise.
We live in a world where ultracrepidarians generate enough noise to make discovery difficult.
There are few words like this I use on a regular basis. My favourite is probably supraclavicular.
A while back, my boss was a very capable engineer with one hell of a sense of humor (a very useful thing for engineers and scientists since we tend to take ourselves a little too seriously). I once noticed that in a meeting with some upper management types, the beancoutners were talking about something fundamentally stupid that we were asolutely not going to do. I explained, the best I could, why we should not be doing that. I was very adamant we shouldn't for two reasons: 1) it was profoundly ignorant and stupid, 2) it would take me two months to work through all the bullshit if they forced me into it. I am neither a nice man nor a tolerant one and my boss (Richard) noticed that I am getting a full lungs of year to explain to the upper management guys what exactly they can do with this idea. In retrospect, that would have been career limiting, but I was too young to care. Richard smoothly inserted himself into the conversation and explained to them that there is fundamental supraclavicular problem that makes ths idea non-viable.
Apparently, noone knew what "supraclavicular" meant and noone was going to fess up to that. The subject was dropped. As we were walking back to the lab, I sked Richard what he meant by that word, since I didn't figure it out either.
Richard originally planned to become a doctor, but dropped out of medical school after a couple of years since it clearly wasn't for him. He foudn his calling in the semiconductor world. He did pick up a few words there.
Supraclavicular means "above the clavicles". What is above the clavicles? Mostly your head. A supraclavicular problem is a problem of understanding and understanding only.
It is a somewhat subtle thing, as is "ultracrepidarian". It does not necessarily mean "full of shit". It can simply means that a layman's opinion is passed off as an expert opinion. More dangerously and very commonly in the last few years and opinion of an expert in an unrelated field is passed off as an expert opinion. A lot of our response to COVID was exactly that.
