posted by [identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com at 04:28pm on 15/06/2006
(A) ROFL. Priceless.
(B) But, is it true that autodidact refers to "working things out from first principles" and not "working things out without guidance or information given by another person"? The first hit on google is a word of the day, the quote being "Consider the autodidact in Sartre's Nausea, who is somewhat unbelievably working his way alphabetically through an entire library."
 
posted by [identity profile] bugshaw.livejournal.com at 04:49pm on 15/06/2006
(B) I was using autodidact for self-taught, to refer to myself going to the library to look up how to pronounce dilettante rather than happening to be taught how at school. Pulling the info, not having it pushed to me. I don't know if that is a correct usage - I'd have to look it up ;-)

BTW, I found I had been pronouncing dilettante incorrectly for years. I've not had a moment like that since misled - which, misleadingly, is not pronounced "my-zuld".
 
posted by [identity profile] marypcb.livejournal.com at 07:21pm on 15/06/2006
misled is very common - the philology lecturer at Oxford used to have a long string of auto A) and B) heterodidacts who got it wrong. learning more words from books than people, it wasn't till his lecturers that I realised not to pronounce all the syllables in miscellaneous

A)exactly right
B)taught by others, made up by me

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