Tag Archives: pseudo-intellectual

Checkmate

Checkmate: (n) in chess, a check from which a king cannot escape.

Rudy was not rude–but he was very stubborn, especially when it came to chess.

He loved the game and had practiced it since he was a boy of five, and now, at sixteen years of age, he was anxious to take on all comers. He loved to obliterate the competition, bragging about how few moves it took him to conquer.

He was certainly obnoxious.

He was so bratty that everybody wanted to play chess with him just to pull him down a peg or two from his glory perch in the sky.

Everybody but me.

I had learned to play chess when I was very young, but never liked the game that much. Even though I realized stating that aloud made the smug and the pseudo-intellectuals believe that I was stupid, I still found chess to be slow and over-rated.

So I had no intention of playing the game with Rudy the Rude. (I changed my mind. He was rude.)

This frustrated him and caused him to put out vendetta after vendetta, and eventually he told me that if I could beat him, he would give me five dollars and if he won, I would owe him nothing.

I thought it was time to risk my ego for the possibility of remuneration.

Call it what you will–an alignment of the stars, a lucky few moves, Rudy losing concentration, or maybe me just being better at the game than I thought I was–well, I beat him.

Checkmate.

He went ballistic. He was so angry that he nearly accused me of cheating–except that our little match had gained an audience of about twelve people, so there were witnesses.

He reached into his wallet, handed me five dollars, and screamed, “Double or nothing!”

Now, let me tell you that I possess many vices. For instance, I’m obese. I’m kind of lazy. I need to work on my consideration, like every son of Adam. But I am not bone-dead stupid.

Possessing the Golden Ring, it is not a good idea to go to a pawn shop and hock it. I wasn’t about to give Rudy another opportunity.

I think it nearly drove him crazy–because every time he began to discuss his God-given ability with knights, kings and rooks–there was always somebody who had been at the great match, and was prepared to remind him of his Waterloo.

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix 

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Auto

dictionary with letter AAuto: (n) an automobile.

About two years ago, for fun, I decided to take a series of obsolete words and use them over and over again for a 24-hour period.

The reason for my little ploy was to find out what people would think if they heard words being used that had either been buried in the past or were associated with a pseudo-intellectual form of speak.

It was great fun.

And of course, one of those words was “auto.”

You would be surprised if, for just one day, every time you referred to your car you refrained from using “wheels” or “transportation,” and just told people you were “on your way out to your auto.”

One fellow thought I was British. Mind you, I had no accent–just apparently came across very Queenly.

But the general consensus was that in using words like “auto,” which have long since been buried in our history, I was generally deemed to be very intelligent–but not particularly appealing.

Isn’t it interesting that even though we tout the importance of education, when individuals express the fruits of that experience through their vernacular (the way they talk), we are somewhat put off by them and wonder why they don’t just “say it plain.”

So when I exclaimed to a group of teenagers that I was “off in my auto to motor to the general store to pick up some sundries,” the blank looks were priceless.

Yet they did get out of my way … and make room for my verbal ego.

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Antediluvian

dictionary with letter A

Antediluvian: (adj) of or belonging to the time before the Biblical flood

I must not be the only one–or if I am the only one, I would have to question why I find myself alone.

I would enjoy being allowed to believe in a God who loves people, challenges us to excellence, and asks us to be tolerant of one another without being tied in with barefoot, emotionally Neanderthal sorts who seem to permeate the sanctuary of spiritual thought with outdated concepts and hurtful expletives.

It is very easy in an agnostic-driven society to become the target of pseudo-intellectual critics who try to trap you into defending Jonah and the whale, Daniel in the lion’s den and Noah and the flood.

Recently when I told a friend that I believe that the trinity of God, Nature and Science have no argument with one another and are complementary, he became incensed, insisting that he wanted them separate because the charm of each one lies in its difference from the others.

I was bewildered by that thought. I decided to leave him to his own mental escapade and walk off quietly into the distance.

If there was a great flood, there was also a great season of evolution which preceded it, where dinosaurs walked the face of the earth.

I have no problem with that.

I don’t look at stories from the Good Book as being eyewitness accounts with accompanying photographs. I look at them as tales passed from one generation to another, to encourage the fresh offspring to pursue kindness, goodness, gentleness and hope.

Unfortunately, like in any book, extra narrative is thrown in which does not advance the story.

  • I want to believe in God without having to defend the writings that surround Him.
  • I want to love people because God loves people, without believing that some of them are chosen and others, uncircumcised.
  • I want to live my life with a sense of purpose and emotional grandeur instead of feeling as if I am “one with the walrus.”

I don’t think I’m alone here.

When religion stops putting pressure on mankind to be morally astute, and atheists realize that a life without a Father turns this joint into an orphanage, we will actually begin to make progress … through our humanhood with one another. 

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ACLU

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

ACLU: (abbr.) American Civil Liberties Union

I’ve got it figured out. (Well, I probably don’t, but I thought I would begin this article without using the passive voice.)

EVERYONE is conservative.

That’s right. Everyone is trying to conserve something. And everybody who disagrees with what the other guy is trying to conserve believes that the other party is either a hick, an ignoramus, a pseudo-intellectual or a hippie.

All you have to do is mention the American Civil Liberties Union in a positive light, and you are already labeled a liberal. There is no such thing as a Republican who is an advocate of this organization. But if you read their charter, all the ACLU wants to conserve is the liberty and individual rights of every American citizen, with an emphasis toward honoring the sanctity of the freedom of minorities.

THEY want to conserve liberty.

Now, you find some organization down the road called the Family Research Center, or something of that ilk, and they are just as deeply convinced that they are divinely ordained to conserve morality. Now, the ACLU may not be nearly as concerned about morality as they are liberty, but quite honestly, the Family Research people are not nearly as concerned about liberty as they are morality.

You can see the problem. They’re all conservative, without realizing that they need each other. That’s right:

  • Liberty without morality is a train wreck right outside your front door.
  • Morality without liberty is a decision to build a dungeon in your basement for all the people you have decided are evil.

If we could learn to respect one another and listen to each other’s core belief, we might be able to meld into a strong unit for justice.

But it’s much easier to throw rocks across the fence–because you have the great joy of tossing them without ever knowing who they hit on the other side.

I would not want to live in a country that does not have the American Civil Liberties Union. They remind me of people I might forget about–if it weren’t for their presence.

I also would not want to live in a country that does not have the Family Research Center, which informs us when we begin to take good health for granted–be it emotional, spiritual, mental or physical.

Since we’re all conservatives in our own way, we might want to conserve our energy by not fighting–and expend some of it in an attempt to become reasonable.

But since that won’t happen, the ACLU should probably not do a lot of traveling south of Louisville, Kentucky.

And the Family Research Center people might want to avoid taking the big tour of Hollywood.