Another of the wise saws I remember from a series of desk calendars with improving (or, more often, intriguingly subversive) quotations for each day of the year, which I enjoyed throughout much of my childhood (they were a regular Christmas gift from one of my father's client companies, I suppose).
I've always been rather irked by the (depressingly common) assumption that 'experience' is acquired automatically by the simple process of living - and the further assumptions that 'knowledge' equates to 'experience', and that 'wisdom' equates to 'knowledge'. It would be wonderful if we became steadily smarter just by avoiding dying, but the fact is there are lots of middle-aged and elderly people who've lived rich and varied lives..... but who are still dumb as a post. Insight is the thing.
3 comments:
Fantastic! You use the word "irked" in an everyday sentence. I think that "irk" should get out more and do more business. There was a newspaper headline when I was in India: "China Irks India" (something to do with Tibet, I'm sure) which pleased me linguistically. Good word.
Thanks, Livia.
I think I use 'irk' quite a lot. Is it that unusual? Maybe I'm just super-irritable, more easily irked than most.
I suspect it is Scots in origin. You seem to like that throat-clearing 'rrrkk' sound up there! "Dirk the shirker lurks in the kirk. With his dirk. What a berk!"
We get a lot of phlegm. Loch, Broch, Och aye the noo, etc. Hence the need for the rrrkk words.
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