I Don't Understand

I was in college, and I thought I was expanding my learning considerably. Then one day, while visiting my brother and father, who both lived in the Cincinnati area, I overheard their discussion. It may have been a disagreement, but it wasn't heated. The subjects of their discussion were the definitions of perspicacity and perspicuity. (That was the same visit when my father offered to buy White Castle hamburgers for us if we'd go get them. He asked how many my brother and I wanted and we each said "a dozen." Dad asked "EACH?" and we replied "Yes." If you love White Castle hamburgers like we do you understand.)

Both words (perspicacity and perspicuity - remember them?) derive from the Latin word from which we get perspective. The Latin word perspicere means "to see through." There has been a lot of discussion the last few years about transparency - in financial reporting, in governing, and in various other dealings. Transparency of action is a good thing, as is transparency of information. It is transparency of communication that is meant here, and whether it is transparent understanding or transparent communication iti s always best to have no hidden agenda.

Perspicacity is the receiving side of transparency. It is the ability to understand or the ability to judge well. It is used of someone who is acutely perceptive. My wife has a gift of perspicacity especially in relation to non-verbal matters. She can judge a person sometimes better than they can themselves. That's what makes her such a wonderful mental health counselor.

Perspicuity is the ability to express oneself clearly. For some reason I think it should mean what perspicacity meants, probably because of the -cuity ending. Acuity is what comes to my mind, but acuity has an entirely different etymology. It comes almost directly from the French acuite, which originated from the Latin word for needle. The word acuity maintains a sense of sharpness about it, these many centuries later.

To some extent perspicuity relies on the perspicacity of the listener, and familiarity with the nuances of words. It is more easily achieved in talking/hearing than in writing/reading because of inflection and other extra-verbal communication.

Part of my reason for writing this blog is to offer words that have better descriptiveness than more common words, and to differentiate between two similarly good but less-known or less-understood word. Mark Twain said "The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

There is a nice web site at difference-between.com which provides answers to questions like the difference between nectar and pollen, between presume and assume. It is interesting reading and a good source for clarification of common words. I recommend anyone who wonders about there/they're/their or infer/imply to make difference-between.com one of your bookmarked sites. Please!

Anything to help us be more perspicacious is good.