There are many words that bother me. Irregardless is one. It has now been used so often that dictionaries include is as an actual word. Regardless, I still cringe when I hear it.
Octopi is another. But again, it has been used so much that the dictionary now says that it is an acceptable variation of the plural of octopus. Its use is a misappropriation of Latin rules but there are several grammar rules that do the same. Regardless, I still use octopuses.
Forte is another one. Now this one is strange because it’s the pronunciation that bugs me. But now it has been mispronounced so much that the dictionaries say that fort-ta is an acceptable alternate pronunciation. Regardless, using octopuses is my forte.
Deconflict is one that really, really grates my nerves. It seems to be a military specialty. Some time back for fun I tried to Google deconflict and the Google suggestion for deconfliction came up before deconflict. That was weird. There’s no cute ‘regardless’ sentence here. Deconflict just stinks as a word.
Along similar lines, I cannot count the number of times that I have heard that the definition of stupid is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In fact, I’ve heard it so much that I think some people have forgotten the literal definition of the word.
This definition now pains me so much that whenever I hear it I quickly interrupt to point out that it is also the definition of practice. There’s a whole tangent here about how practice doesn’t make perfect but rather perfect practice makes perfect but that’s not where I’m headed.
Persistence can also be defined by a similar phrase. In persistence we keep trying until we succeed. Granted we don’t have to persist by trying the same action, but oftentimes it is. And continuing to do the same thing over and over again until we do get different results is usually described as rewarding. Persistence pays off.
So stupidity is persistence and persistence pays off? When does persistence stop being stupidity and become good? Or when does stupidity stop being dumb and pay off as persistence?
In case you wondered, no, the dictionary does not define stupidity this way. And I really don’t want to wait for it to change to do so. All I really want to know is:
How do we know whether what we are doing is stupidity (bad) or persistence (good)?