Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Pseudo intellectual

In the last few weeks I have been coming across this word - Pseudo intellectual, quite often. I heard Kintu characterizing Apurv as pseudo intellectual in the movie "Dil Dosti Etc" when they met for the first time in the library. Maya calls Raj pseudo intellectual in a pub in the movie "Mumbai Salsa". Then one day when I was having a serious discussion on asymptotes with a group of guys. One of them called me with that same word - pseudo intellectual. Till then I didn't know the correct meaning of the word. So I thought may be the guy means that I am intellectually sound and have a strong hold on the subject, after all I have a masters in mathematics. But his attitude suggested otherwise.

So that night I looked for the correct meaning. And then I realized that I was not pseudo intellectual but the other guy was..


Meaning: Pseudointellectual is a pejorative term used to describe someone who engages in false intellectualism or is intellectually dishonest. The term is often, though not always, used to describe one who regularly critiques the work of professionals, while lacking the requisite background knowledge and experience to have an informed opinion. Synonyms for this character include sophist, and in medical terms, mountebank and quack.

4 comments:

Sirus said...

U mean like dramatizing some explanation.. the grp of guyz got u spot on ;P saala nautanki :P
(Sirus)

Ritesh Agarwal said...

heheheh

Unknown said...

Abe who was the guy.. As far i remember it was champu

Ritesh Agarwal said...

No, it was not Champu. But definitely someone u know really well.